


Til the Skies Bleed Ashes

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blood and Gore, Knives, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Rimming, Rough Kissing, Spit As Lube, Survival, Teamwork, Topping from the Bottom, Violence, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-08-29 01:14:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8470066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Shizuo wonders, sometimes, if he’s not the only human left alive within the city limits, if everyone he has ever known or even glanced at on the street has already succumbed, if he’s not as painfully alone now as he always used to imagine he was." Ikebukuro is quick to fall to infection, but even in the midst of the apparent apocalypse, there are always a few survivors.





	1. Survivor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tsundereslasher](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tsundereslasher).



Shizuo doesn’t know how it started.

He doesn’t think anyone does. There might have been a few holdouts in the darker corners of the city, those with enough knowledge or enough ill-will to realize what was going on before it took over; but if they ever existed they are long gone now, either refugees from the city that has become a husk of itself or incorporated into the massive, shambling horde that has taken the place of the crowds that once filled the Ikebukuro streets with laughter and conversation. There’s no speech, now, or at least nothing that Shizuo would consider such; just low groans from thousands of undead throats, the sound closer to the screech of rusted machinery than to anything approximating human language, and what used to be a crowd made up of individuals with their own lives and their own consciousnesses has devolved into an incoherent mass, the whole of it fixed on the ceaseless, sleepless hunger that so dominates the separate forms that they might as well be a single seething organism.

There’s something almost familiar to it, sometimes. The thought makes Shizuo laugh, in the moments after he’s severed an undead head from rotting shoulders or pulverized an unthinking brain with the swing of an uprooted street sign. He would never expect to take comfort in the thought of the mass of Saikas he faced down all those months ago; but in comparison to this, that was endlessly better. Then the cut of a knife was nothing more than a scratch, not a telltale opening to inevitable mortality; then the opponents he faced went down to a punch or a kick, surrendering to stillness well before the point of facing down their own destruction. There’s some reassurance to be had in the current situation -- Shizuo hardly considers what he’s doing to be murder, not when the enemies he’s facing are so utterly and obviously mindless -- but it’s a fragile thing, cold comfort when held up against the devastation that has gripped Ikebukuro to make the city as much one of the undead as its inhabitants. Shizuo wonders, sometimes, if he’s not the only human left alive within the city limits, if everyone he has ever known or even glanced at on the street has already succumbed, if he’s not as painfully alone now as he always used to imagine he was. The perspective is harsh, seen from this angle; what he thought once was self-imposed isolation is nothing at all compared to this endless wave of true monsters, of corpses moved to uncanny action by whatever disease or parasite caused this apocalypse until Shizuo is lucky to obtain enough peace to allow himself a few minutes of rest.

It’s the ceaseless pursuit that is wearing him down. The combat is a simple thing; the zombies are slow, shuffling on legs made the more unsteady by their condition rather than less so, and with a street sign in hand Shizuo might as well be invincible for all that the reaching hands and gaping mouths threaten him. But it’s been a day and a night, now, with the dawn of the second morning hours past, and Shizuo can feel exhaustion hanging like a stone around his neck, dragging his shoulders forward into a slump and slowing all his reflexes to a fraction of what they usually are. It’s still enough to push back the horde, for now, as long as he stays to the side streets instead of the overwhelming flood of corrupted humanity that fills the more populated areas; but his movements the first day, when he took out nearly two dozen zombies in the first five minutes of emerging into the hellscape that his city has transformed into, are a distant dream, nearly impossible to credit even in memory. He’s stopped carrying a weapon with him; it leaves him more vulnerable to a surprise attack, but he feels the weight of the signs dragging at his arm as he never has before, as if exhaustion is stripping away the strength he has always so hated right at the moment when he must rely upon it for his continued survival. It should be enough to keep his bleary eyes open, to keep his attention on the space around him as he moves; he’ll see any attacker in plenty of time to seize upon a makeshift weapon from one of the empty buildings surrounding him, and it’s just as he’s telling himself this that the figure lunges at him.

It’s not his fault, Shizuo thinks as he turns, as those delayed-reaction reflexes fire what adrenaline he has left into aching muscles to pivot him hard on his heel to face the oncoming opponent. None of the zombies have shown any attempt at disguise before, none have indicated any but the most rudimentary thought processes; he had stopped peering into shadows for nonexistent enemies hours earlier, when his fading focus demanded that some portion of his attention give way if he was to keep moving at all. This one is smarter than the others, and quicker -- it’s on top of him as fast as he’s turning, bolting forward and swinging what looks like a knife towards his head when none of the other zombies have shown the least interest in weapons, much less an ability to use them. This one must be an anomaly, Shizuo thinks with the adrenaline-quick whip of thoughts coming in the face of disaster, he could hardly have expected this kind of behavior; but that’s no assistance now, that awareness will do nothing at all to save him from the infection and following death sure to result from such close-range combat. Shizuo ought to give up, he thinks, should let the blow land and let the teeth tear into him and let this whole desperate struggle for existence give way at once; but instinct surges stronger than exhaustion, and brings his hand up to swing under the arc of that silver knife and close hard against the bones in the wrist under it. There’s a hiss of reaction, a burst of sound past clenched teeth, and that’s strange too but Shizuo doesn’t have time to think through the implications, not when his whole body is burning hot with the immediacy of fighting for his life and the unbelievable awareness that his skin hasn’t yet given way for the infection brought by the monsters. He’s shoving his attacker back against the wall of the darkened alley, lifting his free hand into a fist to crush the fragile bones of the monster’s skull; and “ _Shizu-chan_ ,” the other gasps, crimson eyes gone wide on shock, and Shizuo jerks his hand sideways just in time to crush through inches of brick instead of skin and bone. The impact jars up his arm and aches at his shoulder, the wall creaks and shudders protest; but Shizuo isn’t paying any attention to either of those.

“ _Izaya-kun?_ ”

Izaya blinks. His eyes are wide, his head tipped very slightly to the side; Shizuo’s sleeve is brushing his hair, he’s sure that blow would have clipped the other’s ear if not for Izaya’s shift to keep himself out of harm’s way. But he’s not looking at Shizuo’s arm forming a wall of threat alongside his face, isn’t so much as blinking at the shattered brick crumbling to dust over his shoulder; he’s staring up at Shizuo instead as if he’s never seen him before, as if he doesn’t trust the evidence of his own eyes. Then again, Shizuo doesn’t think he’s managing much more composure; his mouth is open, his thoughts are blank, the whole of his exhausted awareness is scrambling to make sense of what’s in front of him. Izaya’s wrist is still locked in Shizuo’s grip, his clothes are stained with blood and his skin is smeared with dirt; but those eyes are still definitively human, even wide on disbelief, and in the first moment of shock the initial reaction Shizuo’s mind musters is relief just at finding another survivor, even if it’s Orihara Izaya.

“You’re alive,” Izaya says, his voice whisper-soft on shock; and then, as his expression cracks into a laugh so bright it shudders like mania down Shizuo’s spine, “I guess I should have expected that, really. If a gun couldn’t kill you why would zombies be any more effective?”

“What are you doing here?” Shizuo blurts without thinking.

“Are you going to kill me for trespassing on your city?” Izaya suggests. “You can have it, it’s all yours for the keeping. I don’t want to be anywhere near this place right now.”

“Why _are_ you here?” Shizuo asks. “Why would you come here the way it is now?”

“I didn’t _know_ ,” Izaya tells him, his voice so harsh and vicious that Shizuo believes him without so much as a flutter of hesitation. His stare is still fixed on the other’s face; Shizuo’s not sure he’s blinked at all for the last span of seconds. “I hoped it might not be as bad as it is in Shinjuku.”

“Is it?”

Izaya coughs another one of those painfully sharp laughs. “It’s worse,” he says, judgment like a door slamming shut. He shifts his hand, easing some of the tension from the angle of the knife he’s still clutching; Shizuo can feel the bones of Izaya’s wrist shift underneath his hold. “Are you going to keep me here until the horde comes for us both, Shizu-chan, or are you going to let me go?”

Shizuo blinks. “Oh,” he says, and lets his hold go at once. It’s not until he’s pulling his touch away from Izaya’s skin that he realizes he’s left himself open to an attack, that he’s just given Izaya back the use of his hand with a weapon still caught in his fingers; but Izaya doesn’t make any move even to pull away from the wall, just drops his arm and takes the knife with his other hand so he can make it disappear into his pocket before replacing the weight of Shizuo’s touch at his wrist with his own.

“Is gentleness a foreign concept to you?” he asks without lifting his head to meet Shizuo’s gaze. “You could have broken my arm doing that. I’m as good as dead if I can’t hold a weapon.”

“I thought you were one of them,” Shizuo tells him. He draws his hand free of the destruction he’s caused to the brick wall; there’s another rain of powdered dust, another spill of crumbled masonry to scatter across the shoulder of Izaya’s coat. “I almost killed you.”

“I noticed,” Izaya says down to swelling rising to the dark of a bruise under his sleeve. “I didn’t realize you were…” he waves his hand to encompass the whole of Shizuo’s form, “...Still yourself either.” He glances sideways from under his hair; his eyes catch the faint light in the alley to glow with the color of spilled blood, his mouth twists sharply on a smile. “I never would have thought I’d be glad to see you alive.”

Shizuo snorts. “The feeling’s mutual.” It feels strange to laugh, even with the raw edge on it that’s currently sticking to his voice; there’s some kind of a relief just in putting voice to words, in having someone listening and responding to them with the proof of human consciousness behind their actions. It’s enough to lift a fraction of the impossible weight from his shoulders, enough to undo some of the hopeless resignation that has been bearing him ever further towards the ground with every step forward he takes. It’s strange how much a difference one person’s company makes, even the one person Shizuo would least like to see; whatever of his usual frustration there is in him is completely pushed aside by sheer gratitude for the human companionship Izaya offers. Izaya’s still flexing his wrist, working through motion like he’s testing the mobility of the bruised joints, but he’s not watching the movement; he’s eying Shizuo instead, looking at the loosened cuffs of the other’s shirt and the missing button on his vest and the ragged tear just at the knee of his slacks. Shizuo braces for some kind of comment about how he’s let himself go, or about the obvious near-misses written into the torn edges of the fabric over his calf; but when Izaya speaks it’s with surprising calm on his voice, and without looking up to meet Shizuo’s gaze.

“When did you sleep last?”

Shizuo blinks. It takes him a moment to process the question just for the level tone Izaya puts on it, and then another, as the thought of _sleep_ aches sudden heaviness through his whole body, like it’s a reminder of exactly how much he’s craving rest. “A while.”

Izaya’s gaze flicks up to meet Shizuo’s eyes, his mouth drags sharp on a laugh that goes unvoiced. “Yeah, me too.” His words are like a spell; they draw Shizuo’s attention away from the cut of his smile and the blood-bright of his eyes to all the rest of his expression, to the weight of the shadows under his lashes, to the lines pressing hard at the corners of his eyes, to the set strain along his jaw. He looks more tired than Shizuo has ever seen him before, like he’s only holding himself upright by sheer force of will to stay on his feet; but then, Shizuo feels the same, if he lets himself think of it for any period of time at all. He’s not sure he could push aside an attack from Izaya’s knife, if the other decided to resume their usual aggression in spite of the circumstances; but Izaya is letting his hand fall to his side without moving to draw his weapon again, and whatever shadows there are around his eyes they’re not forming into the brittle edge of viciousness Shizuo is used to seeing.

“I have a proposition for you,” Izaya says bluntly, giving the words clear voice in spite of the haggard lines of exhaustion so clear across his expression. “We’re both going to be dead or worse by nightfall if we try to continue on our separate ways.”

Shizuo frowns. “You’re saying we should team up.”

“Only temporarily.” Izaya isn’t moving from his position against the wall; his shoulders are tipped back against the brick behind him, his whole posture angled back as if he can’t find the strength to stand upright when he has something else to support him. “I know trusting me may be something of a challenge for you.”

Shizuo snorts. “You’re not the first person I’d choose to guard my back.”

Izaya lifts one shoulder into a shrug, lifts the corner of his mouth into a smirk. “I don’t care if I’m dead last. You don’t have many other options, Shizu-chan.” His smile flickers, fades, and then is gone, leaving just the flat line of his mouth again. “And neither do I.” He tips his chin down and fixes the dark of his stare on Shizuo’s face. “Would you rather become another mindless undead than trust that I won’t kill you while you get some rest?”

Shizuo hesitates. Izaya holds his gaze, his stare unflinching and his eyes dark; but there’s a shift at his jaw, the set of tension working in his throat as he swallows back the faintest tell of stress. Shizuo doesn’t think he would have seen it at all if Izaya were more rested, if Izaya were less desperate; but the other’s hands are tensing at his sides as if he’s wishing for a weapon he’s not letting himself hold, and his face is gripped with the lines of exhaustion, and even his eyes look bright with anxiety, like the light behind them is a candleflame making a last attempt at survival in a high wind. Shizuo wonders what would happen if that light gusted out, wonders what Izaya would do if Shizuo pushed him past his last extremity of desperation; and then he huffs an exhale, and lets his curiosity go unsatisfied.

“Fine.” It’s worth it, almost, just to see the way Izaya’s eyes go wide, to see the set lines of his face go slack with the first wave of shock too strong for him to disguise. “But I’m taking first shift while you sleep.”

Izaya snorts. “I’m not sure I trust you to keep yourself awake, the way you look now.” He’s waving a hand before Shizuo can more than take a breath for protest, pushing aside the other’s argument before it’s even given form. “Not that I’m going to push the point. I don’t particularly care if zombies get us in the middle of the night as long as they let me sleep through it.” He glances out towards the main street, turning his head away to look towards the shallow sunlight illuminating the pavement; his hair falls dark as shadow across his features, the curtain of it hiding the exhaustion under his eyes for a moment before he tips his head back to fix Shizuo with a gaze no less steady for how tired his eyes are. “Shall we brave the ruins of your city together, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo looks at Izaya for a moment. There’s the glint of a threat behind the dark of the other’s lashes, the tension of danger against the line of his shoulders; but his usual smile is absent, and his hands are slack at his sides, and if there’s broken-glass bright behind his stare at least it’s better than the flat mindlessness of the zombies Shizuo has spent the last day and a half wading through.

“Sure,” Shizuo says, and turns away from Izaya to face the street instead. It feels strange to offer his back to the other, he can feel tension prickling all across his shoulders with the awareness of it; but when Izaya’s footsteps land against the pavement there’s no cutting edge of a knife to go with them, and when Izaya says “Let’s go” there’s no taunt to a fight under his voice. Shizuo glances back, just once, to see Izaya staring at him with absolute attention behind his eyes and no trace of a smile at his mouth; and then he looks back and out to the main street, and leaves his worries about trusting Izaya behind him.

He has bigger problems to worry about right now.


	2. Humane

“I should have known,” Izaya sighs, hissing the words in a low tone that carries clear to Shizuo’s ears but is still soft enough to avoid drawing the hordes of undead that descend upon any sound with a greater range. “Even in the middle of the apocalypse, you wouldn’t be happy unless you incapacitated me somehow, huh?”

“I didn’t know it was you,” Shizuo growls back. “I was on-edge and you came at me with a knife, what was I supposed to do?”

“Not break my wrist,” Izaya says without looking up. He’s in the process of wrapping dark fabric tight around the bruised-in sprain Shizuo’s grip left; from his set of his mouth and the white of his face, it hurts at least as badly as he claims it does, and Shizuo has a suspicion it may be worse even than Izaya is letting on. “How am I supposed to defend myself if I can’t hold my own weapon?”

“It’s dangerous to fight them in close range anyway,” Shizuo informs him, sparing a glance for the handspan of open blade Izaya has lying next to him in case he needs to cut off another strip of makeshift bandage from what was Shizuo’s vest not very long ago. “All it would take is one bite.”

“I _know_ ,” Izaya snaps, yanking harder on the fabric than he needs to to cinch it tight around his wrist. “I’ve had plenty of time to think about the disadvantage of my weapon of choice under the circumstances. I didn’t choose it with the possibility of the zombie apocalypse in mind, that was clearly an oversight on my part. Unfortunately I’m working under something of a difficult situation, you see, and gaining sudden proficiency in anything _else_ is going to be somewhat challenging with neither weapons nor teachers nor time to practice.”

Shizuo grimaces. “Sorry.”

“You should be,” Izaya tells him, but he’s easing his pull against the fabric, and he spares a moment to glance at Shizuo kneeling alongside him. “It was hard enough to make it through that first day and now I’m all but helpless, thanks to you.” He looks back down at what he’s doing to layer the end of the fabric over the wrapping and slide the loose end inside the tension of the cloth; he tries flexing his wrist, his expression twisting on hurt as the joint shifts against the pressure of the bandage. “I need another layer.”

“I’ll get it,” Shizuo says, more out of an unwillingness to suffer through another round of Izaya’s passive-aggressive struggles to manage both fabric and knife with one hand all but out of commission than out of any naturally occurring benevolence. Besides, it’s far faster for him to brace the fabric in his grip and tear an inch-wide strip off by hand, even if some part of his mind cringes at this deliberate destruction of his uniform. He thinks he can be forgiven for it, under the circumstances. “Here.”

Izaya’s staring at him, his eyes dark and mouth set. “Of course,” he drawls, reaching out to close the knife in on itself and return it to his pocket before he takes the weight of the makeshift bandage from Shizuo’s hand. “I should have known you’d prefer brute strength over tool use.”

“Shut up,” Shizuo growls. “It got the job done.”

“Hm.” Izaya ducks his head over his wrist, pinning the loose end of the cloth between his arm and his knee to hold it in place while he wraps the fabric through its first loop. “Well, that’s true. I can hardly argue with your efficacy, Shizu-chan.” The bandage slips, the fabric sliding slick over itself and falling loose; Izaya makes a face down at the dark wrapping his wrist. “This is really the wrong material to be dealing with.” He sets the loose end against his knee again and starts working through another loop; he’s more careful this time, but it still slips before he finishes the action, the fabric sliding over itself to fall free of Izaya’s wrist.

Shizuo huffs exasperation. “Here,” he says, and reaches out for Izaya’s bandage-wrapped arm. His fingers almost touch the fabric before Izaya jerks back reflexively, snatching his hand back against his chest as if he’s as afraid of Shizuo’s touch as of a bite from one of the monsters shambling along the main street. Shizuo frowns. “I’ll wrap it for you.”

“You’re the reason I need it wrapped in the first place,” Izaya tells him without lowering his hand from his chest. “How do I know you won’t finish the job now?”

Shizuo’s jaw sets on irritation, his shoulders hunch with the beginnings of frustrated anger. “It was an _accident_ ,” he snaps. “Why would I deliberately make it worse?”

“You _hate_ me,” Izaya answers back, the reply coming as quickly as if he had reached out and smacked it across Shizuo’s face. “Or have you forgotten the years you’ve spent trying to kill me?”

“You were trying to kill me too,” Shizuo snaps back, feeling his anger spike higher for a moment; but Izaya’s not pulling his knife, and he’s not leaning forward into Shizuo’s irritation. He’s just sitting still where he is, his shoulders hunched in around his hurt hand and his eyes dark with more protective self-defense than the taunting mockery Shizuo is used to seeing in them. It makes him look smaller, somehow, like he’s taking up less space now than he seemed to when Shizuo could see his fingerprints on every uncanny happening in the city, and it undoes Shizuo’s rising irritation into the unpleasant sourness of what feels alarmingly close to guilt, as if he’s being a bully instead of acting out of the self-defense he’s entitled to. He closes his mouth and drops his gaze, frowning hard at the other’s hand cradled against his chest while the strain across his shoulders gives way to uncomfortable self-consciousness.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, gritting the words out as he keeps his gaze fixed on Izaya’s wrist instead of the constant frustration the other’s stare offers. “Give me your hand and let me help.”

“You sure know how to make a persuasive argument, Shizu-chan,” Izaya drawls at him, and Shizuo looks back up to the other’s face, opening his mouth on the beginnings of a full-blown argument after all. But Izaya’s not looking at him anymore; he’s ducked his head to let his hair fall in front of his face, and he’s offering his hand across the gap between them. Shizuo blinks, his attention scattered out of coherency for a moment; and then he collects himself enough to reach out and brace his hold against the other’s hand. Izaya offers the fallen strip of fabric without looking up and Shizuo takes that too, draping it around the dark wrapping Izaya’s wrist before bracing it in place with his thumb so he can wind the loose end into careful pressure instead.

A few moments pass in silence. Izaya’s hand is slack and unresisting in Shizuo’s hold; it’s strange how fragile his fingers look when they’re not bracing against the handle of a knife. The thoughts makes Shizuo frown with the uncomfortable contrast between his expectation and reality, and when he speaks it’s roughly, choosing a subject at random just for the sake of having something to pay attention to other than the way the fabric under his hold fits tight around the narrow lines of Izaya’s sprained wrist.

“Why did you come here?” He aims the words at Izaya’s hand, and at the open curl of the other’s fingers; it’s easier to keep his voice level if he’s not meeting the infuriating bright of those eyes. “Didn’t you know what had happened? You should have headed for the country instead of farther into the city.”

“I didn’t, actually,” Izaya says, so sharply Shizuo nearly glances up at him to see the other’s expression. There’s a pause, a huff of breath; when Izaya speaks again it’s a little bit softer, his voice deliberately modulated down to a gentler range. Shizuo can hear the strain of effort on the other’s tone. “All my sources went silent at once. I didn’t know it was going to be as bad here as it was in Shinjuku.” Some of the tension in his arm gives way as he slumps back against the wall. “I hoped it wouldn’t be, anyway.”

Shizuo looks back up. Izaya’s turned his head away; he’s looking out towards the street, his lashes heavy over his eyes to make his consideration more idle than focused on the potential threats presented by the main streets. His mouth is flat, his lips soft without any trace of the strain Shizuo is used to seeing under them; he looks exhausted, like he might just give way entirely under the burden of facing down the full-blown apocalypse they’ve both been caught in. It’s uncanny to see him looking so uncertain; Shizuo can only stand to watch him for a moment before he has to duck his head just to look at something else. “You didn’t know this was coming?”

“No,” Izaya says without any heat on his voice. “I would have tried to stop it if I had. I know you may find this difficult to believe but I’m not fond of this type of destruction. There’s no interest to this.” His free hand lifts to gesture towards the street, the buildings, his fingers sweeping to encompass the whole of the city in one quick action. “It’s just animal instinct for them now. It’s easy to predict what they’ll do. They’re not human anymore.”

There’s a pause while Shizuo wraps the last inch of fabric around Izaya’s wrist. He pulls it tighter for a moment as he fits the end inside the wrapping of the bandage itself; Izaya tenses at the pressure, but he doesn’t say anything in protest, and Shizuo lets his hold go as soon as the bandage is in place. When he looks back up Izaya’s watching him, his gaze level and his mouth still holding that strange unthinking softness, like he’s forgotten to meter his expression into the deliberate mask he usually maintains with such vicious regularity.

“It definitely makes your company more palatable by comparison,” he says without looking away from Shizuo’s gaze. “Even you seem human in the lack of other options.”

Shizuo snorts. “Thanks,” he says, the word desert-dry on his tongue. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind when this is over.”

“You should,” Izaya tells him. “Maybe give me a ten-second headstart the next time you decide to try to murder me.”

“I’ll think about it,” Shizuo says. “If you give me advance warning when you decide to send another gang to attack me.”

Izaya shrugs. “Maybe I will, the next time I want to get rid of a gang.” He ducks his head to look down at the pavement under him and braces his good hand against it; when he pushes himself to his feet it’s in one graceful motion, fluid enough that it leaves him standing over Shizuo for a moment before the other can get to his feet himself. Shizuo’s instinct prickles, protesting this possibility of danger from the other; but Izaya doesn’t move to reach for his knife, or to take any action at all but stand still and waiting while Shizuo pushes himself to his feet with as much speed, if less grace. Even once Shizuo has regained the advantage of height on him Izaya just stands still in front of him, looking up at the other with his eyes dark on something too close to consideration for Shizuo’s comfort.

“Let’s go,” Shizuo says, just for the sake of having something to say that will push aside Izaya’s focus on his face. “I want to get some rest and I’d rather be inside a building than outside.”

“What, you don’t want to catch some downtime in an alley?” Izaya drawls, but he’s turning away in spite of his taunt, stepping forward out of the alcove they stopped in so he can check the street for any remnants of the general horde of zombies they have to deal with. “I thought that would be more your style, Shizu-chan, your pretensions to domesticity continue to astound me.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Shizuo tells him, and Izaya glances back over his shoulder to flash a grin at him before taking the lead out onto the main street. Shizuo frowns hard and growls irritation in the back of his throat, but he steps forward anyway to trail Izaya out into the haze of the city daylight again.

At least it’s easier to follow him when he’s not running.


	3. Scavenge

“I don’t believe you,” Shizuo growls to Izaya, turning his head to glare sideways at the other. “All that information gathering and look how much good it is now.”

“My apologies,” Izaya grates past gritted teeth, his gaze fixed firmly on the street in front of them instead of on Shizuo’s face. “I didn’t incorporate a zombie apocalypse into my contingency plans. Clearly I should have followed _your_ example and been ready at all times for the entirety of the city to descend into complete chaos. Tell me, where’s the shelter _you_ had prepared for this kind of emergency?”

“I don’t brag about how much I know about the city,” Shizuo snaps back. Even his irritation is coming through a haze, his adrenaline working syrup-slow through the weight of exhaustion heavy in all his limbs; it’s a struggle to keep his eyes open, a monumental effort to keep his feet moving forward along the street. The familiar cadence of arguing with Izaya is the best thing he has to keep his mind anything like alert right now, and even then, he has the vague sense that his words are collapsing to incoherency even as he gives them voice. “You’re supposed to be the person people go to for information on the city, shouldn’t you know at least _one_ safe place to go?”

“I sell information on _people_ ,” Izaya says to the street in front of them. He’s frowning at the pavement, his expression taut on lines of irritation, but his shoulders are slumping and both his hands are slack at his sides; Shizuo is fairly sure it’s only an unwillingness to show weakness that is keeping Izaya upright right now. “You’re talking about _locations_. Places without people are totally useless, Shizu-chan, that’s what a _map_ is for.”

“Places without people are exactly what we need,” Shizuo tells him. “If there are no people we’ll be a hell of a lot safer for the night.”

Izaya rolls his eyes dramatically. “I _know_. Thank you for explaining the basic premise of a zombie outbreak to me, I don’t think I ever would have grasped it on my own.”

“I just mean--” Shizuo starts, stepping wide to circle around Izaya’s far side as they round a corner; and then they turn onto the street, and a cluster of heads turn to look at them, and both their footsteps stop dead at the same time. For a moment there’s just silence, as nearly a dozen zombies and the two of them stand still staring at each other; and then one of the monsters takes a lurching step forward, and another one makes a low groaning sound in the back of it’s throat, and from Shizuo’s side Izaya hisses “ _Shit_ ” in a low, strained tone Shizuo has never heard from the other’s throat before. Izaya takes a step back, his weight shifting to his back foot as he pivots sideways and looks back the way they came; and that’s all Shizuo has time to notice before the adrenaline drowsing in his veins surges to blistering heat all across his skin.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shizuo growls, and he’s moving forward instead of backwards, lunging towards the slow-turning mass as a dozen pairs of bleary eyes lock onto the prey he and Izaya appear to be. They’re too close to the entrance of the street, there’s no space to get past the horde to the stop sign Shizuo can see another block farther along; but there’s a building next to them, the smooth cement front offering a promise that Shizuo is happy to draw on. The facade crumbles to his fist, giving way like sand to the impact, and as the first of the zombies shuffles into range Shizuo’s fingers close around one of the support beams that brace under the cement to provide it the stability to remain upright against the pull of gravity. It comes loose at his first pull, tearing free of crumbling cement in a cloud of dust and a screech of metal, and Shizuo is swinging it forward in the same movement, bringing the end of the metal arcing through the air to smack solidly into the skull of the first zombie. The makeshift weapon isn’t moving as fast as it normally would be -- pulling it free from the wall only gave Shizuo a few feet of movement to accelerate the blow -- but it’s still enough to crush through the first zombie and tear cleanly through the neck of a second before lodging itself in the ribcage of a third. Shizuo draws the rebar back one-handed, braces his grip on it between both hands, and on the backswing he takes out the third zombie with a sound like a bat hitting the outside of a melon. There’s a wet _crack_ , a spray of blood that flings outward into an arc as smooth as from a painter’s brush, and the zombie collapses bonelessly to the pavement. It’s a success, of sorts -- a quarter of the attackers are down, and now Shizuo has a weapon in his hands -- but the delay of pulling the bar free left the others time to approach, and they’re closing in in a mass wide enough that even one of Shizuo’s blows can’t take them all out at once.

“Shit,” he hisses, the sound as much a growl as a coherent curse, and he swings again with the full force of his weight behind the action. It’s a clean movement, he can feel the satisfaction of the impact as his blow cleaves through one zombie skull and cracks open a second;  but the impact saps more of the momentum than he expected, or maybe his exhaustion is finally catching up with him, because the blow only takes out two of the approaching horde, and his backswing only two more. There’s still a handful approaching, closing in past the point of safety, and Shizuo stumbles a step backwards in a half-thought attempt to gain more range for the swing of the weapon in his grip. He can manage another handful, maybe three or four if he’s lucky; but they’re closing fast, moving quicker now as if they can sense how close to their goal they are drawing, and Shizuo can feel the cold of resignation run up the length of his spine to sap the energy from his blows and to chill the hope of survival where it’s beating in his chest.

He draws back for another swing, thinking vaguely of how stupid this is, that he should go down right when he thought he had found the possibility of survival again; and there’s a snapped “ _Idiot_ ,” from over his shoulder, and a surge of motion in his periphery like shadow given form. Shizuo’s head turns, instinct turning to follow the movement even as his body completes the wind-up for his next blow, and Izaya darts in close to the farthest of the zombies, stepping in well within range of grasping hands and dragging teeth. Shizuo’s breath leaves his lungs to come out as a wordless shout of alarm on the other’s behalf; but Izaya’s already moving, lifting his unwrapped hand to swing the dark form of a weight clutched in his fingers. Shizuo can’t make out what it is in the moment it swings down, but it cracks against the side of the monster’s head with a sound that makes the outcome clear a moment before the zombie’s body gives way and returns to the stillness of true death it should have had all along. Izaya wrenches the shape free of the zombie’s broken skull, turns to look at the next pair of hands reaching for him, and Shizuo shouts “ _Izaya_ ” with the full force of his lungs. Izaya doesn’t even turn; he just drops, letting the support of his legs give way so he falls to his knees, and the pole in Shizuo’s hands swings barely an inch over his head to slam with full force into the zombie stretching for a grip on the other’s coat. It flies sideways, the rotting shape of its form holding together enough to allow it to be propelled to smash against the buildings at the other side of the street, and in front of Shizuo Izaya leans over to crush the object in his hand -- his knife, Shizuo realizes, with the blade still locked inside the handle to give it extra weight -- through the skull of the head Shizuo knocked loose with his first swing. The undead motion of the separated head goes still, the weight of it rocks sideways to fall against the rest of the collapsed zombies, and Izaya gets to his feet again, wiping the handle of his makeshift bludgeon against the shirt of one of the fallen opponents.

“You know,” he says as he fits the weight of his knife back into his pocket and pivots to fix Shizuo with a flat stare. “You don’t _have_ to exert your dominance over every monster you run into. Retreating from certain death is a lot better than, you know, _certain death_.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, too breathless and shaky with his last reserves of adrenaline to come up with any of his usual growling irritation for the other. “But we’re not dead.”

“We almost were,” Izaya informs him, but his voice lacks any real bite to it either; even his gaze is dropping like he’s struggling to keep it up, his focus sliding down to the weight of the rebar still clutched in Shizuo’s hands. “How about you hold onto that for any future fights rather than going on a scavenger hunt while facing down a horde?”

Shizuo’s fingers tighten against the steel; he can feel the ridges of it pressing into his palm to leave lines of cement dust across his skin. But “Yeah,” is all he says, offering surrender instead of the argument he doesn’t have the energy or the conviction for. “You’re right.” Izaya’s gaze flicks back up to his face, the other’s eyes going wider for a moment of shock, but Shizuo doesn’t linger to savor this victory over Izaya’s composure; he’s moving forward instead, shuffling along the now-clear street with a weight to his movements he thinks might leave him on par with the zombies. “Let’s find a place to rest before the sun goes down.”

Shizuo supposes he ought to relish the complete quiet his response wins from Izaya. The other is absolutely silent until Shizuo is several steps past him; it’s only as Shizuo is drawing level with the next intersection that the patter of footsteps behind him indicates that Izaya is jogging to catch up with the gap the other’s motion has left between them. Even when Shizuo glances back Izaya’s neither smirking nor scowling at him; he’s looking past his shoulder instead, his attention entirely on the street before them as if he intends to singlehandedly prevent a run-in like the one they just left behind. It’s a novelty, to have Izaya so compliant and so _quiet_ ; but Shizuo doesn’t feel any vicious satisfaction from it, can’t muster any kind of bitter happiness about the unusual peace. He looks away instead to turn his attention to the street in front of them, and heads for the most deserted building in eyeshot of their current location.

He’s too tired to feel anything other than relief at having another pair of eyes to watch his back.


	4. Invulnerable

They do find a building eventually. It’s not the first one they look into, or the second, or even the fourth; but finally Izaya pauses from where he’s been taking the lead into the silence of abandoned rooms, and looks back over his shoulder to the hallway they’ve been shuffling down, and says, “This’ll work” without asking for any kind of input from Shizuo. Shizuo would be offended by this disregard, maybe, in other circumstances; but right now he thinks he’d be willing to drop into sleep at the feet of an entire mob of ravenous zombies if Izaya will hold still long enough to let him, and he doesn’t even bother with the most cursory of checks before following Izaya into the room. It’s an office, small even with the door open and cramped with it shut; but there’s only one window, and that a pair of stories above the ground, and there’s a heavy desk against one side of the room that Izaya tells Shizuo to move in front of the door to serve as a barricade. There’s blood smeared across one wall, and a handprint pressed flush against the inside of the door; but that’s something to be expected, under the circumstances, and Shizuo lacks the energy to so much as flinch as he shoves the weight of the desk back against the door with a low _thud_ like thunder on the horizon.

“Quiet,” Izaya says without any force to his words at all. “We’re going to be in trouble if we end up with a horde outside the door. I don’t think my legs are strong enough to take the jump to the street from here.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, barely holding onto the meaning of Izaya’s words at all for the weight of exhaustion pounding at the back of his head and pressing a haze over all his thoughts. “It’s fine. There’s no one in the building but us.”

“I hope so,” Izaya says, but his voice is distant, judged as unimportant by Shizuo’s worn-out consciousness; far more crucial is that the door is barred, and the window is high enough from the ground to be safe, and the floor is looking more comfortable than any bed Shizuo has ever slept in. He spares a glance for the crimson-saturated sky on the other side of the window -- the sunsets, at least, have become things of stunning beauty thanks to the smoke rising from the destruction that has swept over the city -- before falling to the floor with a _thud_ loud enough to rival the noise of the desk hitting the door.

“That’s it,” he says towards the ceiling, already shutting his eyes in surrender to sleep. “I’m out.”

“Wait,” Izaya says. “You can’t sleep yet.”

“Yes I can,” Shizuo says without bothering with opening his eyes. “Stop talking and I’ll manage it in five minutes.”

“You _can’t_ ,” Izaya says. “ _Shizu-chan_.” There’s a huff of exasperation, a gust of sound from the other side of the narrow office; and then an impact at Shizuo’s shoulder as something hits lightly and bounces off to fall to the ground. It’s enough to get Shizuo to open his eyes, if only barely, and turn his head to look at what Izaya’s just thrown at him. It’s not the closed knife he half-expected; there’s the glint of sunlight off foil instead, the sight of a colorful printed image over a palm-sized rectangle, and Shizuo frowns and turns to reach for the shape as Izaya kicks a leg out in front of him to take up what space Shizuo isn’t already occupying.

“You should eat first,” Izaya informs him, his head ducked down over a match for what Shizuo recognizes as an energy bar as he closes his hand around the crinkle of the foil wrapper. “God only knows when we’ll have anything to eat again, you should make the most of it while we still have something left to us.”

“Where did you get this?” Shizuo asks, blinking shock at the bar in his hand. “Was this in here?”

“Yes,” Izaya drawls, punctuating with a bite of the half-unwrapped bar in his own grip. “There was a whole stockpile of them in the desk drawer. Fortune smiles upon us after all.” He reaches into his pocket; there’s a rustle of sound, another crinkle of foil, and when he draws his hand back it’s just enough for Shizuo to see the wrappers of another handful of bars.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Izaya tells him, pushing the bars back into his pocket before taking another bite. “I took some supplies from the first convenience store that wasn’t overrun with zombies.”

“You stole them,” Shizuo says.

“It’s the _apocalypse_ ,” Izaya snaps, turning his head to glare at Shizuo. “I don’t care all that much about becoming a petty thief, under the circumstances.” He holds the other’s gaze for a moment, the color of his eyes shadowed to dark by the fading light through the windowpane; and then he looks back down to the bar in his hands as his fingers tighten very slightly against the give of the wrapper.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, taking another bite that’s far more vicious than the first. “From the look of the shop, I don’t think the owner will be caring about little things like money from this point out.”

Shizuo’s stomach turns over, his blood going cold at this reminder of the obvious truth, the fact of their situation that he should have considered, that even the last two days haven’t been enough to press firmly into his awareness. “Oh.” He braces the bar in one hand and brings the other around to the top; the wrapper gives way to a single quick motion, the strip of foil in his grip tearing completely free as he pulls at it. He stuffs the foil into his pocket in absentminded thought of finding a trash can later and lifts the bar to his mouth more to give himself an excuse for silence than out of any real hunger. Energy bars aren’t something he’s ever particularly enjoyed over the course of his regular life; but the taste of the bar bursts onto his tongue with the sweet-sour of fruit and sugar together, the texture catches to crunch at his teeth, and Shizuo is pushing to sit upright before he’s even swallowed his first bite, his appetite reemerging with a vengeance at the reminder that there is such a thing as food in the world. Izaya seems to be having a similar experience, or at least enough of one to keep him quiet while Shizuo devours the whole of his bar and unfolds the foil to search for the last crumbs at the bottom edge of the wrapper; by the time he collects himself enough to look back over at the other Izaya has folded his own wrapper into a tiny rectangle, tucking the torn edges in under themselves to keep the lines of it cleaner even than they were before he opened it.

“Do you have any more?” Shizuo asks.

Izaya glances at him sideways without turning his head to look up from under his hair. “Yes,” he says, and immediately, before Shizuo has a chance to respond: “That’s all for tonight. Who knows when we’ll get our hands on more?” He looks back down to the wrapper in his hands, frowning at the rectangle as he folds it over on itself again and digs his fingernail in against the crease. “As it is I only have enough to last us a couple of days. If I had known I would need to feed two instead of one I would have stocked up.”

Shizuo’s fingers tighten, his hand closing into the weight of a fist around the empty wrapper in his hand as a prickle of almost-guilt runs down his spine. “Oh,” he says, feeling the absence of his usual frustration like a void in his thoughts keeping him from getting any traction on real coherency. He looks down at the press of his grip against the bar wrapper, frowns unthinkingly at the tension in his fingers. “Thanks for sharing.”

There’s a pause, a moment of silence that stretches to fill the whole of the room for a span of heartbeats. Then Izaya huffs an exhale, the sound loud enough to chase back the edges of the peace, and there’s a crinkle of foil as he tosses the folded wrapper between his fingers towards the knocked-over trash bin in the corner of the room.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I was already carrying as much as I could. Even if I had known I was going to meet up with you it wouldn’t have made a difference.” He glances at Shizuo again, his mouth tugging sharp at the corner in the beginnings of a smile that doesn’t quite make it to the shadows under his eyes. “I probably wouldn’t have believed I would be teaming up with you even if I had known.”

Shizuo snorts. “Yeah.” He follows Izaya’s lead in throwing his wrapper towards the bin; it catches at the edge of the metal instead of going in, and he kicks a leg out to nudge it inside. “Should we sleep?”

“Are you asking for my permission now?” Izaya wants to know. “You were all set to pass out a few minutes ago.” He’s teasing, his voice is hitting that lilting sing-song that Shizuo knows too well from past fights, but his smile is strained when Shizuo looks back to him, his eyes heavy with visible exhaustion.

Shizuo blinks. His shoulders are aching, his eyelids are dragging, his whole body is crying out for rest, and yet: “Do you want to take the first shift of sleeping?”

Izaya huffs another unamused laugh, looking away to the trash bin again. “Are you that concerned about a betrayal? I could give you my knife to use as a pillow if that would make you feel more secure.”

It takes Shizuo a moment to realize what Izaya is talking about. The memory of his own words is hazy, as if he’s drawing back years into the past instead of mere hours, and the sense of danger he felt then is impossible to recall. He doesn’t know if it’s that the strain of the situation has managed to completely override his natural instincts with regards to Izaya, or that their fight earlier was persuasion enough of this fact, or that he’s just too tired to care. Maybe it’s the taste of the energy bar still sweet against his tongue, like physical proof of their temporary truce enough to sweep aside years of mutual hatred, at least for a night.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, finally, when he’s caught up to the implication pressing so sharp-edged underneath Izaya’s words. “You look exhausted. I can stay up for another few hours so you can get some rest if you want.”

Izaya’s head comes up at once, his attention fixing on Shizuo’s face as his eyes go wide with shock. For a moment he’s just staring at Shizuo, all the harsh lines of his expression totally evaporated into the odd vulnerability of true, unrestrained surprise.

“Oh,” he finally says, closing his mouth to swallow. Shizuo’s never seen Izaya at a loss for words before. “No. It’s only a few hours.” He blinks, his expression going distant as he collects his composure back around himself and drags his gaze deliberately over Shizuo’s rumpled shirt and torn slacks. “You don’t look too great yourself, anyway. Go ahead and get your beauty sleep, I’ll be fine.” His mouth twists at the corner, dragging up into a sudden grin; it’s startling how instantly it comes into being, the more so for the way it manages to catch and sparkle behind the shading of Izaya’s eyes as his smirk did not. “It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve stayed up all night.”

Shizuo frowns. “You’ll wake me up if anything happens?”

“I’m hardly likely to let us get surrounded just so you can dream uninterrupted,” Izaya informs him. “Go to sleep, Shizu-chan. The sooner you’re asleep the sooner I can wake you up for my turn.” That’s not quite right -- there’s some missing step of logic there Shizuo can sense if not unwind -- but Izaya’s smile is still clinging to his lips, and his gaze is still fixed on Shizuo’s face, and in the end Shizuo can’t muster the strength to keep up his end of the argument.

“Okay,” he says, and falls back to lie across the floor without hesitation. “Wake me up when it’s my turn.” He lifts one arm to drape across his face, covering his eyes from the last rays of the sunset with the sleeve of his shirt, and takes a deep breath of relief just at letting himself finally give way to relaxation.

He’s asleep before he sighs his exhale.


	5. Panicked

Everything seems brighter in the morning.

Izaya shakes Shizuo awake in the middle of the night, when the pavement outside is still lit with the flickering yellow of streetlamps and the sky isn’t showing the least trace of the dawn to come; Shizuo feels like he could sleep for another lifetime still, if he was allowed to, but the improvement in his awareness is stunning even with the whole of his body aching with desire for more rest. He settles himself in front of the window, watching the occasional movement in the street below and listening for any indication of sound on the other side of the barricaded door; but there’s nothing to hear, nothing to disturb the quiet that fills the space, and he lets the hours pass uncounted, lets them slide past in calm until the sun stands well above the horizon and the relative safety that daylight offers is too much to waste. Izaya wakes up with a start when Shizuo touches his shoulder, jolting upright so fast Shizuo nearly jerks back in expectation of an attack; but Izaya just blinks sleep from his eyes and says “Oh. Shizu-chan,” with early-morning neutrality on his voice.

There’s no mention of breakfast, and Izaya makes no move to offer the small store of energy bars still in the pocket of his coat; he flexes his hurt wrist without taking off the bandage, and opens and closes his knife with his bruised hand, and then gestures at the table and says “If you would” with the beginnings of his usual bite back in his voice. Shizuo moves the desk aside, lifting more than pushing to limit the weight of the sound in the enclosed space, and if he’s careful about easing the door open it proves needless; the hallway outside the office is as empty now as it was when they came in. They make it to the street as easily, without any sound or movement around them but what they make themselves, and the street is clear too, entirely absent of the occasional shambling forms they had to deal with the day before. Izaya’s shoulders ease out of tension Shizuo hadn’t even realized was there as they clear the first cross-street to continue their way across the city, his movements gaining fluidity as he falls into step with the other, and by the time they’re a half-hour farther across the city it’s Izaya who starts up conversation, speaking in a soft tone that remains surprisingly friendly even aside from the deliberately low pitch of his voice. Shizuo responds in kind, trying to match the volume of his replies to Izaya’s, and they continue like that through the morning, with the low hum of conversation to harmonize with the sound of their footsteps.

It’s more of a comfort than Shizuo expected it would be. He never would have thought he would appreciate Izaya’s company; even last night, with hours of time in all but solitude, he couldn’t make sense of the idea, struggled to piece together the fact of Izaya’s presence with the lack of adrenaline in his veins. It seemed an impossibility, even with Izaya asleep in front of him atop the makeshift pillow he made of his jacket; Shizuo can hardly imagine spending more than five minutes with the other without dissolving into a fight, even with the recent recollection of the afternoon to lend shape to the idea. But Izaya’s less irritating than he usually is, or maybe Shizuo just has bigger things to worry about, because as they make their way through the back streets of the city there’s none of the usual strain Shizuo feels at the glimpse of that familiar jacket in his periphery, none of the jaw-clenching frustration that comes with the strange, almost metallic bite of Izaya’s scent clinging to the air. It feels almost like reassurance, as if the recognition that used to come with a surge of instant anger has inverted itself into comfort, as if the simple presence of someone he knows alongside him is enough to make the foreign surroundings of the fallen city around them feel something like home again.

“I was thinking,” Izaya’s saying now, murmuring in that same soft undertone that Shizuo can barely make out over the scuff of their shoes against the pavement. “I’ve known you almost as long as anyone else in my life.”

Shizuo lets his attention to the streets around them go for a moment, just for long enough to shoot a sideways glance at Izaya alongside him. Izaya’s not watching Shizuo; he has his attention fixed on the street in front of them, is showing as much care in his consideration of their surroundings as in the whisper-soft placement of his feet. His eyes are wide, his attention clearly focused around them; but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, amusement or appreciation Shizuo is fairly sure is an unconscious consequence of the other’s distraction from the conversation at hand.

“Don’t be stupid,” Shizuo says back without any force beyond mild disagreement on the words. “You’ve known your sisters their whole lives.”

Izaya rolls his eyes. “Who’s being stupid?” he asks. “Of course I’ve known my sisters longer, they’re _family_. They’re different. And then there’s Shinra, of course, but we’re friends.” Izaya pauses for a moment before tipping his head to the side and shrugging one-shouldered. “As much as anyone can be friends with Shinra.” That makes Shizuo snort laughter, the amusement spilling up his throat before he has a chance to catch it back, and Izaya glances at him for a moment, his smile slipping wider before he looks back out to the silent street around them. “But you and I have still known each other since high school. It’s been almost a decade, now.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, sparing a quick glance for their surroundings before looking back at Izaya next to him. That smile is still lingering; it makes Izaya’s face look softer than Shizuo usually sees it, gentles the sharp edge behind his eyes into something almost warm for a brief, uncanny moment. “I guess you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” Izaya says. His voice is as warm as his smile; it’s purring in the back of his throat until he sounds like he’s fighting back the weight of a laugh from his lips. “I’m proud of you for finally coming to realize that. Perhaps there may be hope for you yet.”

“I don’t care how long it’s been,” Shizuo tells him. “I was right that first day. You’re the worst and I hate you.”

“Yes, I know,” Izaya says, his smile going wider as he watches the street ahead of them. It’s sharper too, picking up an edge as if honing itself against the familiar grind of Shizuo’s words in his throat. “It’s good to know not everything has changed, isn’t it?”

Shizuo is going to respond. He has the words on his lips, has his mouth open to offer them back as a verbal parry to Izaya’s teasing instead of the physical one he would offer in different circumstances. There’s a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, adrenaline flickering through him into something a little softer than usual, a little more like sparkling electricity than the heavy drumbeat of true anger; he’s thinking this might not be so bad, surprised even in himself at how easily threats turn to banter on his lips. He’s thinking of that, his attention caught by the back-and-forth of their conversation instead of focusing on the still of their surroundings, and that’s why, he thinks, he doesn’t see the shadow behind a half-open door shift and detach into a separate form. He’s looking at Izaya, looking at the angling tilt of the other’s smile, looking at the shift of dark lashes over crimson eyes as Izaya glances sideways up at him; and then there’s a sound, a low rattle of threat so near it chills Shizuo’s blood to instant ice, and Izaya turns his head to look just as the zombie closes a hand around his arm.

Shizuo jerks back. It’s instinctive, a reflexive retreat instead of a conscious one; in the first surge of startled panic there’s nothing else he _can_ do, nothing else that is possible in the span of his thoughts. There’s just the need to fall back, to put distance between himself and the attacker; but when he stumbles away Izaya doesn’t follow, Izaya is held in place by the zombie’s hold at his arm. Shizuo’s attention skids, tracking the unnatural strength in the rotting fingers gripping Izaya to stillness, picking out the impossibly short distance between the bare skin at Izaya’s neck and the blind want of the zombie’s open mouth, and he inverts his motion, taking a step forward again as his hands curl into fists at his sides, as he tenses in expectation of throwing a punch at dangerously close range to the infection coursing through the congealing blood in the zombie’s veins.

“ _Go_ ,” a voice says, sharp and brittle like shattered glass; Shizuo doesn’t parse the tone as Izaya’s until there’s a shove at his chest, a closed fist slamming against his ribcage to force him back and away. Shizuo looks to Izaya, gets a flash-frame of the other’s expression -- set jaw, dark eyes, bloodless face -- and his mouth, moving over words that seem to come with syrupy slowness in the overdrive Shizuo’s heart has leapt into. “Get a _weapon_.”

Shizuo blinks. The motion seems to take a lifetime, as if his whole body is frozen to some impossible slow-motion while his thoughts work at twice their usual speed to process events. Izaya is telling him to go, to leave him alone, to attain a measure of safety; but Izaya’s free hand is closed on the handle of the knife he drew from his pocket, he’s sliding the blade free even as he turns away from Shizuo’s frozen position, and the tension against his jaw and the clench of his teeth speak to a determination to survive, a desperate desire to make it through rather than giving in to some suicidal self-sacrifice. It’s enough to rely on, at least for the few seconds Shizuo needs, and he’s turning before he’s processed the pressure in his chest as trust, as belief that Izaya will keep fighting long enough for him to provide support. It’s a bizarre thought to have as he bolts for the bent outline of a street sign a few feet away, strange in how ordinary a reaction it feels; but he doesn’t have time to think about that right now, not with Izaya fighting for his life behind him.

The pole crumples to his grip, the metal giving way to fit the outline of his fingers as he closes his hold against the shape of it. He has a thought to the rebar, the makeshift weapon he carried with him all last night and into the office they camped out in; the weapon that is still in the corner, blocks behind them and rendered useless by his own forgetfulness. But this works just as well, and he’s wrenching the sign free of the pavement and turning on his heel to look back just in time to see the zombie lean in towards Izaya’s throat.

There’s no time to hesitate. Shizuo is moving as quickly as the thought flickers through his mind, lunging forward at the same time his grip on the pole shifts to steady the weight against the support of his palms. Izaya has his knife clutched in his hand, is stabbing hard against the side of the zombie’s head, but whatever damage he may have done to the monster’s brain is clearly insufficient to strip it of its single-minded purpose. Shizuo can’t see Izaya clearly, can’t tell if there’s the outline of a fatal bite already printed over the pale of the other’s skin; but he’s not waiting to be sure, not when a moment’s pause could mean the difference between life and death. He swings instead, bringing the weight of the pole around to slam full-force into the back of the zombie’s head as Izaya turns his head away and shuts his eyes in flinching anticipation. There’s a _crack_ , loud and wet in the quiet of the alley, and Shizuo pulls back against the forward motion of the pole in time to stop the force before it carries right through the destruction of the zombie’s skull and into Izaya’s. There’s a splash of blood that catches against the dark of Izaya’s hair and splatters against the pale skin of his jaw; and then the zombie slumps into true death, and Izaya jerks his knife free as the now-still form collapses to fall to the pavement. He looks down at it for a moment, his fingers clenched to a white-knuckled grip against the handle of his knife; and then he raises his head, and his eyes meet Shizuo’s from over the length of the street sign still clutched in Shizuo’s hold.

Shizuo wonders -- briefly, in the span of heartbeats his adrenaline lets him have for stillness -- if Izaya is as terrified for himself as Shizuo is for him.


	6. Alive

“I’m okay,” Izaya says, panting the words around the breathless half-run he has to maintain to keep up with the length of Shizuo’s full stride. It might be easier for him if he were free to set his own forward pace without restraint; but Shizuo has his hand closed tight around the other’s upper arm, and he’s dragging them both through the door of the apparently deserted building at a pace to match the thrum of pure adrenaline in his veins that is skidding his heartbeat out of control against his ribcage. “I’m _alright_ , I didn’t get bitten.”

“Shut up,” Shizuo tells him, growling the words into force without looking back to make eye contact. He’s all but pulling Izaya down the hallway, now, only offering the barest glance to their surroundings to make sure they’re as empty as they appeared to be from the outside; most of his attention is given over to desperate calculations and assumptions in his head. _How long would it take? Is it a slow process or an instant one? Would he have noticed? Would he tell you if he knew?_

Izaya doesn’t listen. “Shizu-chan,” he says again,  his voice skidding high with the force of the words. “Calm _down_ , it’s _fine_.”

“It’s _not_ fine,” Shizuo snaps, the words coming so loud they’re almost a shout to match the way his hold goes tighter on Izaya’s arm, as if he’s trying to hold the other to humanity by raw physical force, as if that would even work. There’s a line of doors in front of them, apartments or offices Shizuo doesn’t know which and doesn’t slow to find out; he just grabs a handle at random, dragging it open to reveal a space small enough to be obviously empty at a glance, and then he’s shoving Izaya forward into it, letting his hold go to leave the other stumbling forward as he struggles to regain his balance after Shizuo’s ungentle push. Izaya turns to fix Shizuo with a glare as he catches himself into balance again, but Shizuo doesn’t wait for whatever protest the other might offer; he’s turning back to the door, slamming it shut with the same hasty carelessness and wrenching the handle to the side until the mechanism gives way entirely to turn into a makeshift lock to hold the door shut. No sooner is this minimal concession to safety done then he’s turning, pivoting hard on his heel and striding forward to grab at Izaya’s shoulders and push him backwards, sending them both stumbling over the floor until Izaya’s back hits the wall with enough force that the air gusts out of his lungs with involuntary force.

“ _Show me_ ,” Shizuo grates, his fingers too-tight at Izaya’s shoulders, his heart racing on unfettered panic in his chest.

Izaya coughs and gasps a lungful of air before blinking up at Shizuo, his eyes dark and forehead creased on confusion. “What?”

“Fuck,” Shizuo says, and he’s letting Izaya’s far shoulder go, reaching to catch his fingers against the other’s chin to force his head sideways and bare the side of his neck for the illumination spilling through the cracked glass of the room’s window. Izaya huffs an exhale again, as if the touch of Shizuo’s hand carries as much startling force as his shove did, but Shizuo isn’t looking at his expression; he’s pressing his fingers to Izaya’s neck instead, rubbing hard at the few droplets of blood the zombie’s death left against the pale and finding nothing but unbroken skin under his touch.

“I’m fine,” Izaya says again, his voice trembling audibly in his throat. He doesn’t try to turn his head back to look at Shizuo, doesn’t try to wrench himself free of the other’s hold; he just leans back against the wall, letting the support at his shoulders take his weight while Shizuo pushes frantically against the collar of his jacket, the neckline of his shirt, the weight of his hair, trying to press his fingers against the whole of Izaya’s skin to reassure the terror in his chest that it’s whole, that Izaya’s safe, that Shizuo hasn’t already lost his one companion to the fatal infection bleeding through the rest of the city. “Shizu-chan, I told you, I didn’t get bitten.”

“Are you _sure_?” Shizuo demands, because he can’t find any trace of such but he wasn’t watching the whole time, he doesn’t know if Izaya might not be bleeding from his wrist or arm or somewhere else less obvious but still just as deadly. “Are you absolutely certain?”

“I am,” Izaya says, and he does shift, then, arching up off the wall long enough to shrug the weight of his jacket off his shoulders. It falls to the floor at his feet, leaving just the thin dark of his shirt still covering his skin, but he’s reaching for that too, closing his fingers around the hem and drawing it up high off his hip and over his waist in one movement. Shizuo lets his hold go, pulling back by a handful of inches to give Izaya space to move, and the other tugs the shirt up and off his head immediately, stripping himself down to skin from shoulder to hip. He rubs the shirt across his face to wipe away the few traces of blood from the zombie’s demise, and then he’s dropping that too, lifting his head and spreading his arms out at his sides like he’s making an offering of the clean pale of his skin for Shizuo’s consideration. “Look.”

Shizuo looks. There’s no blood anywhere that he can see, no trace of the oozing wound or bruised bitemark he was afraid of; there’s just pale skin, Izaya’s hurt wrist still wrapped in the dark of the makeshift bandage, the shift of adrenaline-fast breathing in the other’s chest. He’s thinner than Shizuo expected, with the angles of his collarbones and hips razor-sharp under his skin and the tracery of bones against his ribcage shifting to visibility with the strain of his inhales; but he’s right, he’s fine, there’s no indication at all that the attack has left so much as a bruise against his body.

Shizuo’s breath rushes out of him in a long, shaky exhale. He can feel relief like a weight across his shoulders, like it’s trying to drag him down to drop to his knees on the floor. “God,” he manages, his voice trembling in the back of his throat in a way he’s never heard it before, in a way he couldn’t stop if he tried. “I was so afraid.”

“That’s obvious,” Izaya says. Shizuo thinks he might be aiming for a mocking tone, but if he is it falls far short of his goal. He’s still staring at Shizuo with that dark focus behind his eyes, like he’s waiting to see what the other is going to do next. “I don’t have any intention of falling to the horde before I’m dragged there.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, but he’s not really listening; he’s still looking at Izaya’s neck, at the smooth unmarked line of his throat curving down to the angle of collarbone under skin. He can’t stop staring, can’t stop running over the line of it with his attention, as if vision isn’t enough for confirmation, as if Izaya might be able to distract his eyes from reality the same way he has so often distracted Shizuo from everything else around him. Shizuo takes a half-step in, his feet closing the gap between his body and Izaya’s, and lifts his hand to press his palm against the other’s skin. Izaya tenses to the touch, his shoulders visibly shifting, but his skin is warm under Shizuo’s fingers, and when the other slides his hand up to trail over that pale curve Izaya’s head tips to the side in surrender, like he’s inviting Shizuo’s touch to wander higher. Shizuo’s hand drags up against the line of tendon taut under skin, his thumb presses against the edge of Izaya’s jaw; his fingers fit to dark hair, spread wide to slide up over the soft, unbroken skin behind the other’s ear.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Shizuo says, mumbling the words to the tilt of Izaya’s head without thinking over the sounds at all. His attention is entirely held by the way his hand fits against Izaya’s jaw, by the comfort of working over undamaged skin under his fingertips like he’s forming his touch around the shape of the relief still dragging so heavy at his shoulders. With his fingers as they are he can feel when Izaya swallows, can see the shift of movement in the other’s throat under the weight of his touch.

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, the familiar word turned over into something strange by proximity, as if Shizuo being able to feel the hum of the sound in Izaya’s throat has made it into something totally unlike the taunting nickname it usually is. Shizuo blinks, his focus sliding up and away from Izaya’s neck to the other’s face instead, and against his touch Izaya turns his head, looking up to meet Shizuo’s gaze without pulling away from the warmth of the other’s fingers at his skin. His eyes are darker than Shizuo has ever seen them, blown wide and nearly black on shadow; his lips are parted, his mouth half-open on the rush of the too-fast breathing Shizuo only realizes he can hear as he sees the effort of it at Izaya’s mouth. He looks almost drugged, as if the whole of his blood has been replaced one-for-one with an excess of adrenaline too much for his body to stand, and then his lashes dip, his attention drops from Shizuo’s eyes to Shizuo’s mouth, and Shizuo can feel his chest go tense on the sudden clarity of understanding.

Izaya doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to say anything, not when every shift in his expression is speaking for him, asking permission and demanding more at one and the same time. When he lifts his hand it’s like the motion of a dance, like he’s working himself through a choreographed response, and when his fingers press and weight at the back of Shizuo’s neck it seems inevitable, like the only reasonable action to take under the circumstances. Shizuo’s staring at Izaya, his attention wandering across the dark of the other’s hair, the flush of his cheeks, the flickering shadow of his lashes; but Izaya’s focus doesn’t waver from its first point of contact, his gaze doesn’t shift away from Shizuo’s mouth, and then he’s pulling in, and Shizuo is leaning closer, and Izaya’s mouth is pressing against his.

Izaya is hot. He’s warm to the touch, radiant with heat, as if his blood is steam, as if his skin is an open flame. His lips are softer than Shizuo would have thought they would be; they give against the weight of Shizuo’s, press and form against the other’s mouth with uncanny grace, as if they were always just waiting to be used like this. Izaya’s fingers in Shizuo’s hair tense for a moment, clutching hard against the tangled strands, and then ease, going slack and heavy at the other’s skin as Izaya tips his head to the side to fit their lips the closer. Shizuo can feel his heart pounding in his chest, like a premonition of adrenaline that hasn’t quite hit him yet; and then Izaya opens his mouth, and touches his tongue to Shizuo’s lips, and Shizuo’s shutting his eyes, and opening his mouth, and everything gives way at once to the complete distraction of Izaya’s open mouth against his.

Izaya’s a good kisser. Shizuo isn’t surprised by that, on some distant level; it seems par for the course, with Izaya, that he would know how to make every shift of his lips a seduction, would know how to draw his tongue through heat as easily as the venom he usually throws at Shizuo. But Shizuo’s holding his own too, if more by instinct than skill; his hand is still at Izaya’s neck, his fingers still spread wide at the other’s head, and it’s an easy thing to tighten his grip to hold the other steady against the press of his mouth. Izaya’s tongue slides against his, touches ticklish sensation to the top of Shizuo’s mouth like he’s trying to taste the details of the other’s presence; Shizuo lifts his free hand to catch Izaya’s head still between both palms, to pin the other in place so he can kiss hard into his mouth. Izaya makes a faint sound in the back of his throat, a low aching sound like a moan of disbelieving want, and Shizuo can feel the vibration of the sound seize at the back of his head and jolt all down the length of his spine with electric desire.

“Fuck,” he says, the word as much confusion as it is heat, as much voice for his struggling rationality as for the sudden clarity of arousal spiking to ache low in his stomach and purr out through his veins. “What...Izaya, you.”

“It’s the adrenaline,” Izaya gasps against his mouth, and the words are reasonable but his tone isn’t, it’s as sharp and desperate as the hold he has at the back of Shizuo’s head, where his fingers are tangled to a fist in the other’s hair. “We almost died, it’s. This is a perfectly normal response.” His free hand is closing at Shizuo’s shirt, dragging hard against the fabric to wrest it loose of the other’s slacks; Shizuo should stop him, he thinks distantly, but when his hand drops it’s to grab at Izaya’s waist instead of his wrist, to close his fingers hard against the sharp edge of the other’s hip and shove him back against the wall as Izaya’s touch slides up under his loosened shirt to press heat against the flat of Shizuo’s stomach.

“It’s not normal,” Shizuo says, “I hate you” but he can barely get the words out for how desperately he’s pressing his mouth against Izaya’s, for how hard he’s crushing his lips to the other’s as if to pull more of those desperate, pleading noises up Izaya’s throat.

“That has nothing to do with it,” Izaya tells him, when Shizuo pulls back long enough for the other to gasp an inhale and form it around the shape of words. His voice is trembling, Shizuo thinks, or maybe it’s Shizuo’s attention that’s wavering, that’s giving way to the force of his heartbeat rattling against the inside of his chest like an earthquake. Izaya’s lashes are heavy over his eyes, weighed down with the same shadows pooling in the dip of his collarbones and casting his lips to suggestion. “Haven’t you ever heard of hate sex, Shizu-chan?”

“No,” Shizuo tells him. “I haven’t.”

Izaya shrugs, one shoulder arching up in a single fluid motion. “Whatever,” he says, and his lashes are dipping again, his lips are parting as his head tips up to make an offering of his mouth for Shizuo. “It doesn’t matter. Do you want to stop?”

Shizuo shakes his head, immediate answer to an easy question. “No.”

“Then don’t.” Izaya’s fingers are wandering across Shizuo’s chest now, his fingertips sliding to press against the gaps between the other’s ribs like he’s trying to capture Shizuo’s breathing against his palm. “I don’t want to stop either.”

“Okay,” Shizuo says, and he’s ducking in again to press his mouth flush to Izaya’s while he lets his hold at the other’s hip slide down over the waistband of the other’s jeans and around to dig in against the curve of his ass. Izaya groans into his mouth, his hips jolting forward to press against Shizuo, and Shizuo pulls hard enough against him to drag Izaya’s balance out from under him completely. Izaya’s hand fists at Shizuo’s hair, his fingers clutch hard at Shizuo’s hip, but Shizuo doesn’t feel the bruising force at his waist any more than he feels the pull at his scalp; he’s occupied by shifting their balance, dropping to a knee against the floor as he drags Izaya bodily down with him. Izaya’s hold gives way as Shizuo tips him back, his fingers slipping loose so he falls back to land heavily against the floor; Shizuo can hear the breath blow out of him in a rush, can see his eyes go wide and his mouth come open with the first startled force of the impact. He doesn’t wait for Izaya to collect himself; his focus is swinging down instead, landing at the front of the other’s dark jeans a moment before Shizuo rocks back over his heels and lets Izaya’s head go to reach for his clothes instead. His fingers catch at denim, his grip braces against the buttons holding the other’s jeans on, and Izaya collects himself enough to reach back up for the trailing edge of Shizuo’s shirt as Shizuo works open the fly of the other’s jeans.

“Gentle with the zipper,” Izaya suggests as the metal teeth catch on each other to resist the sharp downward pull of Shizuo’s grip. “These are the only clothes I have, I’d rather not be facing down a horde of zombies completely naked.” He’s pulling hard against Shizuo’s shirt even as he speaks, rushing through the process of working the buttons free of the fabric as if it’s a race, as if Shizuo is likely to lose interest if they take too long; the idea is absurd, laughable when held up against how hard Shizuo’s heart is pounding in his chest, when compared to the fact that every passing second is flushing him hotter and harder inside his slacks, but Shizuo is wrenching the zipper of Izaya’s jeans open and he doesn’t have the attention to spare to offer any kind of verbal reassurance. Physical will need to suffice, and that he has more than enough of; he’s reaching for the waistband of Izaya’s jeans as soon as the fly is open, dragging at the weight of them until he can get his fingers inside the elastic of the other’s briefs as well, and then he’s pulling all in a rush to strip Izaya down to the flush of heat under pale skin. Izaya makes a sound in the back of his throat as Shizuo gets his clothes down to his knees, something strange and low and pleading, but Shizuo doesn’t look up; his attention is caught at the other’s hips, at the strain of tension against the inside line of Izaya’s thighs and the smooth line of his cock set free of the tangle of his clothes. He’s fully hard before Shizuo’s even touched him, the length of him straining towards the flat of his stomach; the head of his cock is slick with precome, the dark flush of his skin glistening in the illumination from the window. Shizuo can feel his own length twitch inside his slacks with a fresh surge of answering heat.

“Fuck,” he says, and looks down so he can drag Izaya’s shoes loose and pull the tangle of the other’s clothes down off his legs to follow. “You don’t have any lube, do you?”

“Oh, of course I do,” Izaya says, kicking his foot free of his jeans so Shizuo can shove them aside to be forgotten. “In my hurry to prepare for the apocalypse I could hardly forget preparations for sex with my archnemesis.”

Shizuo rolls his eyes. “I was just asking.”

“No, I don’t.” Izaya sounds frustrated, his voice straining in the back of his throat; when Shizuo looks up to his face the other’s wearing a frown to match, the sharp of his smile inverted to the weight of unhappiness. “I suppose I could still suck you off, if you--”

“No,” Shizuo says, and he’s reaching for Izaya’s hip, closing his hand hard against pale skin. “I want…” and he shakes his head, words failing him as he reaches for the ache for connection, for heat, to be as close against someone else’s existence as he can get. “It’s fine, I’ll just eat you out first.”

Izaya blinks, his frown melting away into shock. “You... _what_?”

“Turn over,” Shizuo says, and pushes against Izaya’s hip to suit actions to words. Izaya goes, his mouth half-open on surprise and his eyes still wide with disbelief, and then he’s lying across the floor and Shizuo can reach for the inside of his knee and urge his thighs apart enough to make space for Shizuo’s shoulders between them. His shirt’s undone, the buttons unfastened by Izaya’s too-quick fingers, but Shizuo doesn’t bother to shrug the fabric free before he’s bracing a hand at the small of Izaya’s back and sliding down to lie between the other’s open knees.

“You aren’t serious,” Izaya says, but he’s tipping his legs open wider, and when he shifts his hand to press against the floor it’s with the strain of anticipation under his fingers. Shizuo can see his shoulder flex with the effort, can feel the tension of expectation along Izaya’s spine under his bracing hand, but he’s too flushed with heat to allow for any kind of patience, and he presses his free hand against Izaya’s hip, digging his fingers in hard against the other’s skin to hold him still. “There’s no way you’re--” and then Shizuo licks against him, a long wet slick of his tongue against the tension of Izaya’s entrance, and Izaya jerks convulsively against his hold, his whole body straining with sudden, involuntary response. “ _Fuck_.”

“Hold still,” Shizuo growls without lifting his head, and then he’s moving again, leaning in to press his tongue against Izaya with another deliberately drawn-out stroke. Izaya shudders against the floor, his hips shifting against Shizuo’s hold on him, but Shizuo is focused on what he’s doing and his grip is enough to brace Izaya still for his purposes. He licks again, slower this time to press deliberately against sensitive skin; and then he fits his tongue against Izaya, and pushes, and feels the tension of the other’s body give way to open to the force. Izaya makes a sound, his voice breaking high in the back of his throat on disbelief and heat at once, but Shizuo doesn’t pull away and doesn’t wait to see if the other will be able to fit words around his reaction. He’s focused on what he’s doing, on pressing his tongue farther into the heat of the other’s body, and Izaya is trembling under him but he doesn’t try to twist away, even when Shizuo lets his hold on the other’s hip go so he can bring his fingers up to brace against Izaya and spread him farther open for the press of Shizuo’s tongue. The pressure makes Izaya groan against the floor, his voice skidding up over octaves to break against the highest point of his range, and Shizuo draws back to press his fingers into his mouth and suck hasty moisture over them. He’s panting as he presses a finger to Izaya’s spit-slick entrance, his skin prickling with heat as if he’s been sprinting, and then he pushes to thrust deep into the other’s body and he can see Izaya’s shoulders flex, can see the whole curve of the other’s spine shift and tense in reaction to the force of his touch.

“Just a minute,” Shizuo tells him, hearing his voice come out lower and hotter than he intends it too, as if the pressure tightening in his chest and aching in his cock is shadowing over the sound of his voice as well, anticipation given volume against the back of his tongue. “I just need to open you up a little more.”

“I’m not complaining,” Izaya tells him without lifting his head. He has his forehead pressed down against one arm; Shizuo can see his fingers tense and flex against the floor. “You’re the one who-- _ah_ ” as Shizuo’s finger slides in deeper to press against the slick heat of Izaya’s body. His shoulders tense, his hips buck forward to rock against the floor; Shizuo can feel him clench hard around the press of his finger. “ _Fuck_ , right there.”

“Here?” Shizuo draws back, tries another thrust.

Izaya huffs a whimper of frustration at the floor. “ _No_ ,” he says, shifting his hips back as his legs tremble with the effort. “You’re too high, it’s--” and then his spine arches, his voice breaks off into a high, gasping wail in the back of his throat, and Shizuo can _feel_ the other’s body seize tight around him, like it’s trying to hold steady against the pressure of his touch.

“Okay,” Shizuo says, “got it” and he draws back for another push, partially to make sure he has the angle right and mostly for the way Izaya’s shoulders curve and the way Izaya’s breathing sticks into a resonant moan against the inside of his chest. Shizuo’s heart is pounding, his shirt is clinging to the sweat across his shoulders, and he doesn’t think at all before he’s leaning back in to press his tongue against Izaya again, to trace against the pressure of the other’s body clenching hot against his touch. Izaya whimpers, the sound strange and pleading, and Shizuo pushes hard with his tongue to thrust into the heat of the other’s body alongside the force of his finger. Izaya’s shaking against him, his whole body quivering with every shift of Shizuo’s touch and every slick pass of the other’s tongue, but Shizuo isn’t paying attention to the tremors running through the other’s legs or even to the broken-off, helpless sounds he’s winning from Izaya’s throat; his attention is entirely on the thrust of his finger, and the movement of his tongue, and the feel of Izaya’s body easing to the pressure and the slick of his movement. After another moment Shizuo draws back to press another finger against the first; it slides in smoothly, he can see Izaya opening to the strain without hesitation, and he leans in again to press his tongue against the tension of Izaya’s body and grant what lubrication saliva can offer. His thrusting fingers are sliding easy, Izaya’s opening wide to the force of his touch, and then: “ _Enough_ ,” Izaya grates out, and Shizuo comes back to himself with a rush to realize how hard his cock is against his slacks, how tense Izaya’s thighs are on strain. Izaya’s not bucking forward at the floor anymore; he’s arching away from it now, keeping himself well clear of the friction it offers, and Shizuo has a flickering moment of clarity amidst the heat-stunned haze over his thoughts.

“Shit,” he breathes. “Are you going to…?”

“Shut up,” Izaya snaps, his voice trembling with all the intensity of a wire near to breaking. “You wanted to fuck me, right?” He turns his head against his arm to cut the shadows of a sideways glance back over his shoulder at Shizuo behind him; his cheeks are flushed, his lips parted on his breathing, his eyes dark and hazy with shadows. Shizuo can see sweat slick all across Izaya’s shoulders and shining in a line against the dip of his spine. “Hurry up and put your cock in my ass.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shizuo groans, his whole body surging with heat to answer the demand of Izaya’s voice, and he’s pulling his fingers back and out of the other so he can brace himself at the floor and push himself up over his knees. He looks down for a moment, fumbling through the process of getting his slacks open over the aching heat of his cock pressing inside them, and as he shoves his clothes off his hips to free himself for the open air Izaya is rocking back over his knees and bracing both hands hard on the floor to hold himself up. His head is still ducked down, his hair falling dark as a curtain around his face, but Shizuo can hear how hard he’s breathing, can see the tension of expectation hunching through the line of the other’s shoulders. Shizuo licks across his palm, reaches down to drag extra lubrication over the radiant heat of his cock; he can feel himself twitch at the contact, his body reacting reflexively even to the minimal friction of his spit-slick palm against his length. He reaches out with his free hand to close his fingers against Izaya’s hip, bracing his hand steady against the warmth of the other’s skin, and Izaya’s breath gusts out of him in a rush as if Shizuo’s touch has shocked him. His head tips farther down, his hair falls forward off the nape of his neck, and Shizuo looks down and away from the span of Izaya’s shoulders so he can brace the other still and line himself up. His knees press against the inside of Izaya’s, the tangle of his clothes catching between the two of them as he leans forward, and then he’s pressing against Izaya and his clothes fade out of importance as the head of his cock slides into the grip of the other’s body.

“Oh,” Shizuo breathes. “ _Fuck_.” Izaya’s hot to the touch, so warm it’s almost painful as Shizuo sinks deeper into him; the movement is smooth enough with what wet Shizuo’s mouth offered, but he’s tighter than Shizuo was quite expecting, until he has to grab at Izaya’s hip with his other hand as well just to hold him steady for his forward movement. Izaya isn’t saying anything at all; he still has his head ducked down far enough to bare the back of his neck, still has his shoulders trembling with the effort of holding himself up, and all Shizuo can hear of his voice is the gasp of the other’s breathing as Shizuo pauses and takes a breath to collect himself.

“Are you okay?” he asks, drawing back by an inch so he can slide forward again, making the movement as slow as he can stand it. He’s going deeper in spite of his speed, their bodies coming closer together as he moves; he can’t figure out how to ease his hold on Izaya’s hips. “Izaya, fuck, are you alright?”

“Yes,” Izaya says, the word dragging raw in the back of his throat. “You’re barely inside me, Shizu-chan, I’m fine.” He lifts his head by an inch, tipping his chin to glance back over his shoulder. His eyes are dark with shadow, cast over until it’s impossible to read anything from them at all. “Try actually fucking me and maybe you’ll even be able to get me off.”

Shizuo can feel his mouth set into the weight of a frown. “Shut up,” he says, and moves hard even as he knows he shouldn’t, even as the voice of reason tells him he’s doing exactly what Izaya wants him to do as surely as he used to during their fights. But this is what he wants to do too, this is what the adrenaline coursing to steam in his veins is demanding, and when he draws back to snap his hips forward hard there’s a deep-down satisfaction at the way Izaya’s lashes flutter, at the way his shoulders flex on the first surge of sensation that comes with the action.

“Like that?” Shizuo asks, tasting the question going rhetorical on his tongue. He shifts his hold on Izaya’s hips, looks down to the fit of his body against the other’s as he thinks through the slide of his fingers a minute before, the angle of his touch inside Izaya’s body. “It was like this, right?” He pulls back by an inch, the thrust made shorter than he would like by the demands of the minimal lubrication they have, but Izaya’s inhale hisses in anticipation, Izaya ducks his head down again to hide his expression in shadow, and Shizuo’s own body is going taut with expectation as he shifts his weight up by a fraction. “Here?” He moves forward, a quick, shallow thrust, and Izaya jerks under him, his spine curving as the breath rushes out of him; Shizuo can feel the way his body seizes tight for a moment of reflexive heat.

“Fuck,” Shizuo groans, the sound pulling low and hot in his chest, and he moves again, echoing the action of his last thrust forward. Izaya moans, this time, his throat opening up on a sound like Shizuo’s never heard from him before, and when Shizuo moves again one of Izaya’s bracing arms gives way to tip him forward onto the floor under them. Shizuo leans in rather than pulling away, instinct urging him nearer to the angle of Izaya’s shoulders instead of farther from them; he lets his hold against the other’s hip go to catch his hand flat to the floor, to hold himself up while he starts to work into the other with those shallow, hard thrusts that keep flexing heat across the span of Izaya’s shoulders. Shizuo’s thoughts are going hazy, his attention fracturing along lines of heat and want and pleasure, and it’s Izaya under him and Izaya around him but that doesn’t seem to matter, not with his heart pounding on the adrenaline of desire instead of fury. It doesn’t matter that they’ve spent years trying to kill each other, it doesn’t matter that the whole of the world they once lived in is collapsing around them; it’s enough to feel the way Shizuo’s deliberate movements make Izaya shudder with each heavy forward motion, enough to hear evidence of the other’s appreciation in the breathless whine of his breathing on each exhale. Shizuo’s shoulders are tensing, his legs are aching, but he doesn’t notice, barely feels the sensation at all; everything in him is focused on the rhythm of his movement, on the slow-steady pace forced by circumstances and the way the speed is unwinding up Shizuo’s spine like the tide coming in, like an explosion in such slow motion he can see it unfolding like a flower blooming.

Izaya’s tipped all the way forward, now, his forehead pressed flush to the floor and the rough edge of his breathing coming hot against the surface; Shizuo stares at the back of his neck, at the unmarked pale of his skin flushing with proof of his arousal as his shoulders tremble with heat, and he lets his other hand at Izaya’s hip go, trusting the other to hold himself in place so he can reach around and close his fingers against the heat of Izaya’s cock hanging heavy between his legs. Izaya jerks at the touch, his fingers tensing to make fists against the floor, but the sound he makes is pure encouragement, and Shizuo is moving in answer to that sound, tightening his grip and stroking with quick, rushed movements of his wrist. Izaya’s spine arches, his whole body tensing against the force of Shizuo’s movements, but against Shizuo’s palm his cock is going slick, the head of it spilling heat over the other’s fingers as arousal flushes him hotter against the other’s hold. Izaya’s breathing is fracturing on heat, Shizuo can hear his exhales dragging into moans with every movement he takes, but then he can hear himself as well, he’s all but panting against the tide of heat surging higher in his veins and up the length of his spine. It feels inevitable, like something enormous and unstoppable approaching from a distant horizon; and underneath him Izaya jerks, his hips jolting forward in a short, helpless thrust as his voice breaks on a groan, as his cock pulses and spills over Shizuo’s fingers and the floor underneath them. He’s shuddering with the force of his orgasm, his whole body quivering through waves of sensation under Shizuo, and Shizuo’s losing his grasp on reason, on awareness, on everything but the feel of Izaya coming around him. He still can’t move quickly, his actions are limited to careful deliberation by the lack of lubrication and the heat of their bodies together, but it doesn’t matter; he can feel the tension in him building higher for the necessary delay, can feel anticipation driving the promise of satisfaction impossibly hotter through all his body.

“Izaya,” he says, his voice strange and echoey inside the space of his head as his movements gain the traction of certainty, as his fingers tighten against the floor as if to hold himself steady. “Izaya, _fuck_ , I’m going to come, Izaya--” and the building wave topples over the edge, and breaks over him, and Shizuo’s throat is opening up on a groan and he’s coming, his whole body flexing through the involuntary motion as his awareness gives way to the white heat of relief. It’s good, it’s too good, Izaya’s trembling and gasping and hot and Shizuo would never have thought that anything could feel as good as this. Even the reflexive thrusts of his hips are almost too much; he’s groaning through each one, the sensation sunbright and eclipsing all his attention with every action he takes. It makes the pleasure drag long, pulls his orgasm into an infinity of sensation, until by the time Shizuo goes still to gasp for air at Izaya’s shoulder he has no idea how long it’s been, no sense of how much time has passed since they began.

They’re both still for a moment. Shizuo’s fingers are still around Izaya’s softening cock, his wrist and the cuff of his loosened shirt sticky with the other’s come; his legs are aching, his shoulders trembling, his whole body weak and shaky with relief. He’s not sure how to move, not sure how to fit himself back into the span of his previous existence; it takes conscious effort to ease the grip of his fingers, and another span of time before he can think to brace his palm flat against the floor to support his weight along with his shaking legs. Izaya hisses as Shizuo starts to draw back out him, his body tensing as if to keep the other still, and Shizuo flinches apology and catches at the other’s hip to steady him against the friction of his deliberately slow movement. Izaya shifts as soon as Shizuo is free, tipping sideways to roll onto his back over the floor and stare heat-hazed distraction up at the ceiling. Shizuo thinks about following his example -- his legs feel weak, like the force of adrenaline that swept through him has sapped all his strength with its passing -- but for a moment it seems easier to just stay where he is, rocked back over his heels where he can look down at the pale of Izaya’s skin unmarked by anything but the lingering flush of heat and the weight of Shizuo’s grip at his hips.

It feels good to just appreciate being alive for a few minutes.


	7. Misjudged

“Shit,” Shizuo hisses from the shadows of the abandoned van he and Izaya have taken cover in. “The convenience store was a mistake.”

“What was the alternative?” Izaya murmurs back. His voice is softer than usual in consideration of the need for silence the circumstances offer, but the floor of the van isn’t as wide as it could be; with Izaya half on top of him and his mouth inches from Shizuo’s shoulder, Shizuo can hear the words with perfect clarity without even straining for them. “If you’re that interested in seeing how long you can go without food or water, I’m happy to monopolize the supplies until you collapse.”

“We could have gone at a different time,” Shizuo tells him. “Or in multiple trips so it didn’t take so long.”

“It was a few minutes,” Izaya tells him. “I was as fast as I could be, you can’t complain about that.” He shifts his weight very slightly, like he’s trying to get more comfortable; Shizuo thinks it’s a fairly futile effort, with the overstuffed backpack Izaya returned from the store with pressing between them, but he’s not about to suggest the other let go of it any more than he’s going to ease his own deathgrip on the canvas strap. “It was always going to be risky to return to the main part of the city. We’re doing fine so far.”

“What about this is--” Shizuo starts, his voice skipping up in volume as his temper spikes, and Izaya hisses “ _Ssh_ ,” and lifts his hand to shove hard against Shizuo’s mouth. The force is painful, more than needed to stem the flow of Shizuo’s words, but Izaya’s looking up and out the window of the van with complete attention on his face, and that’s enough to still Shizuo’s flickering irritation into the breathless silence of attention again. He tips his head back against the floor of the van, trying to see out the window with as little movement as possible; but his angle is wrong, all he can see is the stretch of sky overhead and the shadow of movement passing by the outside of the vehicle. Izaya’s breathing catches, his fingers tense in a giveaway for the adrenaline of true fear running through him, and Shizuo has the span of a heartbeat to wonder what they’ll do if the zombies outside notice them, to wonder if they’d stand a chance of escaping before getting pinned down inside the frail structure of the van by a horde. He can’t see the status of the world outside from where he’s lying; all he can see is Izaya’s face, all he can do is attempt to read the situation from the shift of Izaya’s lashes and the tremor against his mouth. There’s tension against the line of the other’s throat, strain written into the shift of tendons under his skin and the weight of his hand against Shizuo’s mouth; and then his lashes dip, his shoulders ease, and he lets his palm draw away from Shizuo’s lips at the same time he sighs into an exhale.

“How many?” Shizuo asks, breathing the words more than giving them true voice.

Izaya shakes his head, still looking out the window of the van instead of at Shizuo. “Just one.” He braces his hand at the floor of the van to steady his weight as he lifts his head to look back out the far windows, his movements careful enough that they won’t draw undead eyes. “That might have been the last of it.”

“For now,” Shizuo reminds him. “If the street’s clear we should get out while we can.”

“I know that,” Izaya tells him. “I’m not an idiot.” He’s sitting up entirely, now, rocking back over his heels and with his attention still fixed on the outside of the van instead of on Shizuo; his expression is relaxed with the focus he’s turning on the street, the tension of mockery Shizuo is used to seeing there entirely absent under the pressure of the situation. It seems strange that he would look more relaxed in a crisis situation, but Shizuo doesn’t question it; there’s too many oddities in their teamwork to count as it is, he’s not about to overanalyze how soft Izaya’s mouth looks when it’s parted on uncertainty or how dark his eyes are as he considers the possible dangers of the street around them.

“Are there any still out there?” Shizuo asks without trying to move from his position on the floor of the van.

Izaya shakes his head absently. “I don’t see anything,” he says. “The view’s not great but there can’t be more than a couple hiding.”

“Great,” Shizuo says, and pushes himself to upright against the floor of the van. Izaya’s attention swings back to him as he shifts, his balance wavering as Shizuo moves under him; he grabs at the other’s shoulder to steady himself, his fingers weighting warm against the thin of Shizuo’s shirt for a moment. “Let’s go, then.”

“Be careful,” Izaya admonishes, but he doesn’t try to hold Shizuo back from disentangling his legs from Izaya’s and his hold from the backpack strap so he can kneel on the floor of the van next to the closed door that has been providing cover to them for the last hour of adrenaline-tense waiting. Shizuo reaches out to close his grip around the handle, braces himself to pull it open, and then glances back to Izaya at the other side of the van.

“Ready?”

Izaya ducks his head in a nod as he pulls the backpack towards himself. “Let’s do it.”

“Okay,” Shizuo says, and then he’s looking back to the door and pulling at the handle with all the force of determination behind the action. It’s more strength than he intends to use and certainly more than is necessary to unlatch the mechanism of the lock; the door comes open with startling speed, sliding wide as Shizuo flinches from the clatter of the metal screeching along its track. But it’s open in any case, and his view of the street is clear, and he’s moving before the door has yet rattled into stillness, swinging himself forward and out of the close confines of the van’s backseat and into the smoke-hazed air of the city street. It’s a relief to move, to fill his lungs with fresh air instead of the stifling humidity that filled the car, and Shizuo’s still lost in the first satisfying breath when Izaya takes a sharp, cut-off inhale as much a warning as the short “ _Shizu-_ ” that follows hard on its heels. Shizuo’s head is turning in involuntary reaction, swinging around towards Izaya leaning out of the van next to him, but Izaya’s not looking at him; his eyes are wide, his mouth open, he’s reaching out with one hand past Shizuo’s shoulder, and then there’s the heavy _thud_ of an impact slamming into Shizuo’s side and he’s falling, toppling to land hard against the pavement underneath him before he’s even had time to look and see the cause of his fall.

He knows what it must be. The street looked clear through the windows of the van, with sunlight illuminating the main street and the first few feet of the alleys to safe emptiness; but he hadn’t considered the space directly underneath the windows themselves, the span of shadow alongside the vehicle protected from view by the angle of the car. The zombies aren’t usually clever enough to think of hiding themselves -- generally they seem to lack anything but basic instincts -- but this one lacks mobility, Shizuo realizes as he closes his fingers hard on a torn shirt and shoves to push the thing back and off him, one of its legs has been torn off at the knee to render it incapable of the faster forward movement the others have attained. It must have come with the last trickle of the mob, must have been left behind while the remnants of the more mobile group shuffled on without it, still working through its slow movement while Izaya and Shizuo watched the last of the other zombies shamble away and out of sight. It hardly matters now, in any case; it’s mobile enough to have thrown itself bodily at Shizuo, and knocked flat on the ground as he is Shizuo can’t get enough traction to rip its inhumanly strong grip free of his shoulder.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shizuo spits, twisting hard against the asphalt under him to slam the zombie up against the bottom edge of the van. He has a hand free, is curling his fingers into a fist of necessity; but he doesn’t know where to hit, when any scratch across his skin could carry the weight of fatal infection with it. The zombie’s mouth is open, its throat is spilling the low groan of instinctive hunger that Shizuo has become so familiar with, and even as Shizuo hesitates the hand at his shoulder slides, fingers closing to dig in hard against the side of his throat. His whole body tenses, the cold adrenaline of panic lacing through his veins at the threat to the vulnerable thud of his pulse under his skin; and “ _Move_ ” comes from above him, a hiss cracking with all the force of an order as a hand comes out to grab and shove at Shizuo’s hair. Shizuo’s knocked sideways, held down by a force that would be too weak for him to notice were it not for his frozen-still shock, and in his periphery Izaya is leaning forward out of the open door of the van, his hold digging in hard against Shizuo’s head as his free hand swings around with the weight of a knife clutched in his fingers. Shizuo doesn’t have a chance to move, doesn’t even have time to close his eyes before Izaya’s hand flexes, his wrist twisting to angle the knife back, and he swings it sharply around to bury the length of the blade into the zombie’s skull. There’s a grating sound of metal dragging over bone, a rattling groan from the zombie’s throat; and then the grip against Shizuo’s throat goes slack, the zombie’s eyes glaze to true blankness, and Izaya jerks his knife free of the thing’s head just as it sags to sprawl boneless and unresisting over the pavement.

Shizuo’s heart is racing, his whole body trembling with the surge of adrenaline left with nowhere to go; he can feel his inhales thrumming to heat in his chest, can feel the entirety of his existence glowing with relief at every moment of life he continues to experience as Izaya draws his hand back from weighting the side of Shizuo’s head. When he looks up Izaya is watching him, his eyes wide and face white with the lingering effects of panic; Shizuo can see the other press his lips together, can see Izaya’s throat work on the motion of swallowing as his fingers tighten and ease against the handle of his knife.

“You owe me for that one, Shizu-chan,” he says, finally. His voice is as level as if it’s been sliced along a razor’s edge, his jaw so set it more than spells out the effort it costs him to hold his tone steady.

“I do,” Shizuo says immediately, offering the words as instantly as they form at his lips. “Thank you.” He doesn’t think about the weight of his speech -- it comes too quickly for him to break it apart beyond that first immediate rush of gratitude -- but Izaya’s lashes dip with the sound of his words, his expression flickering to such complete neutrality it screams his shock louder than a more direct reaction would. They stare at each other for a moment, Shizuo’s heart pounding on near-painful gratitude for his continued survival and Izaya’s fingers trembling very slightly against the handle of his knife; and then Izaya ducks his head, and his hair falls before his face to hide his expression in shadow.

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t break my wrist now?” he says, still looking down as he reaches out to wipe his knife clean against the zombie’s shirtfront. It takes Shizuo a moment to realize what Izaya means; it’s not until the other is twisting the blade back into the handle of his weapon that he notices the black fabric still wrapped around the other’s wrist in the makeshift bandage for the bruise Shizuo’s unwary grip left at their first encounter. Shizuo stares at it for a moment, feeling the weight of chance and serendipity crackling electric in the air; and then Izaya says “You’re welcome,” very quickly, and Shizuo’s attention skips back up to the other’s face at once. Izaya’s not looking at him; he has his head ducked as he slides his knife back into his pocket, as he turns away to reach for the backpack behind him and settle the weight of the straps over his shoulders. It’s only once he has it in place that he climbs forward and out of the van, and only after he’s shaken his hair back from his face that he looks back down at Shizuo still sprawled on the pavement next to him.

“Are you planning to stay there all day?” he asks. His face is shadowed by the angle of his head, Shizuo can’t get a clear look at his eyes; but when he smiles the flash of his teeth is bright and so immediate Shizuo can feel it like a jolt before Izaya reaches out to offer his unwrapped hand in support. “Come on, Shizu-chan, it’s just a near-death experience. I’m sure you can walk it off.”

Shizuo huffs an unwilling laugh. “Shut up,” he says, and reaches to take the hand Izaya is offering. His fingers brace against Izaya’s wrist, Izaya’s grip steadies against the sleeve of his shirt; and then Izaya pulls, and Shizuo stumbles to upright, and when he blinks his vision into focus Izaya is smiling up at him, his head turned so the light can catch the color of his eyes to scarlet. They look at each other for a moment without anything but the quiet of peace between them; and then Izaya blinks, and ducks his head, and draws his hand free of Shizuo’s lingering hold.

It’s not until Izaya’s hand is sliding free of his grip that Shizuo realizes how gently he was holding it.


	8. Action

“This is a mistake,” Shizuo says to the line of Izaya’s hip, growling the words against the pale skin washed to a warm flush of color from the setting sun outside the window of their most recent shelter. “We could be dead tomorrow, we shouldn’t be wasting our time with this.”

“You’re an idiot,” Izaya tells him, tipping his knee wider as if to encourage Shizuo’s touch higher up the inside line of his thigh. “That’s exactly _why_ we’re doing this.” Shizuo can hear the click of plastic against itself as Izaya works open the bottle he apparently collected on his convenience store run along with the food and water still stuffed into the backpack; it’s enough to draw Shizuo’s head up from where he’s been bruising the print of his teeth into Izaya’s hip and to urge his hand up and away from the radiant heat at the inside of the other’s leg so he can offer his fingers for the slick spill of the liquid Izaya pours over them. “Do you think it would somehow be more human to sit around moping over how horrible everything is? That’s not going to solve anything.”

“Neither is this.” Shizuo presses his fingers together to spread the cool wet over his skin before he reaches back down to fit his touch between Izaya’s open thighs and against the tight heat of the other’s entrance. “Are you going to claim this helps somehow?”

“It does,” Izaya says. “It lets us relax. It’s important to manage your stress well.” Shizuo pushes against him with one finger, letting the glide of the lubrication guide his thrust to press inside Izaya’s body, and Izaya’s spine arches at the friction, his breathing gusting out of him in a broken-off groan. “ _Ah_.”

“Sure,” Shizuo says, his attention pulling away from the pattern of their conversation to focus instead on the feel of Izaya giving way to the force of his touch, on the heat of Izaya’s body flexing to clench against the intrusion of his finger. The strain of their constant struggle for survival is fading from his thoughts, his focus is narrowing down to the immediate promise of the next hour, of the next few minutes, of pressing Izaya open around his fingers and sliding his aching cock forward and into the tight grip of the other’s body. “It’s just stress relief.”

“Right.” Izaya lets himself drop back to the floor, lets his knee fall open wider; he has a hand dragging through his hair to push the strands back and clear of his face. When Shizuo glances up at him his eyes are shut, his lips parted on the rush of his overheated breathing in his chest. “Don’t overthink it. You want this too, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Shizuo draws his hand back, works through another slow thrust forward while he keeps his gaze on Izaya’s expression, while he watches heat flicker to crease at the other’s forehead and draw his mouth open on a rush of air. He can feel his blood going hotter in his veins as if it’s answering the flush rising across Izaya’s face, as if the catch of Izaya’s teeth working at his lower lip is enough to drag the friction of desire harder through Shizuo’s body just from the sight of it. He pulls his hand back from his forward motion, touches a second finger to Izaya alongside the first; it feels too tight, like the motion will be impossible, but Izaya tips his head back and groans encouragement, so Shizuo pushes forward anyway, increasing the force behind his hand until Izaya eases to the pressure and his fingers slide in by an inch. He pauses for a moment, giving Izaya time to relax into the sensation, and then draws back fractionally so he can push in again and work himself through another half-inch of depth.

“Would you be doing this with anyone?” he asks, curiosity taking over his mouth to form the words against his lips without any real thought behind them. Shizuo’s attention is on the stroke of his hand more than anything else, his focus given over the the give of Izaya’s body opening to his touch and the catch of tension under the other’s breathing; speech is an afterthought, something to fill the space of the room alongside the strain of Izaya’s inhales and the heat of Shizuo’s own breathing. “If it weren’t me with you. If it were someone else.”

“Sure,” Izaya says, his head tipped back so Shizuo can’t tell if the strain on his words is the tension of sarcasm or just a sideeffect of the position of his throat. He shifts his hand in his hair, angling his arm so his wrist casts his face into shadow; when he speaks again the words are half-muffled by the tilt of his arm across his face. “I’m willing to be opportunistic, Shizu-chan. As far as I know it’s the end of the world, I think that allows for lowering my standards a little bit. You might actually be the last person left alive in the whole of Japan except for me, I’d rather take advantage of that than waste our energy fighting.”

“Yeah.” Shizuo’s heart sinks, weighed down by the loneliness suggested by Izaya’s words; the motion of his hand slows and stills. “Do you think we really are?”

“ _What_?” Izaya’s arm slides sideways off his face as he lifts his head to stare at Shizuo; there’s a crease across his forehead, a frown starting to weight at his mouth. “Really? _Now_ is when you want to have this conversation?”

Shizuo frowns. “You’re the one who brought it up.”

“I didn’t.” Izaya pushes up on his elbows, the movement rushed by frustration; when he pulls away from Shizuo the action is just as hurried, with no consideration for the slick pull of Shizuo’s fingers as he slides himself free of the other’s touch. “ _You_ did. This is _exactly_ what we’re supposed to be forgetting.” He tips himself forward onto his knees, catching his weight as he reaches out to grab a handful of Shizuo’s shirt; his eyes look very dark from this close up, his mouth is flushed to a slick damp that draws Shizuo’s attention as much as the sound of his voice. “Do you really need _that_ much help to keep your mouth shut?”

“No,” Shizuo growls. “It’s fine, I was just wondering--”

“ _God_ ,” Izaya groans, loud enough to drown out Shizuo’s unfinished sentence, and then he’s shoving at the other’s shirt with all the force of a blow. Shizuo topples backwards, his shoulders running up hard against the wall behind him as coherency tumbles completely free of his thoughts; he’s opening his mouth to complain, feeling his forehead crease on the start of irritation, and then Izaya’s mouth is against his, the weight of the other’s lips crushing into Shizuo’s with the violence of a shove. Shizuo’s lashes flutter involuntarily, his throat opens up on a groan of instinctive heat, and Izaya’s free hand is at the front of his slacks, Izaya’s fingers are dragging at the button of his pants to pull it free of the fabric. The weight of his touch grinds down against Shizuo through the thin barrier of the fabric, his palm catches to press hard against the other’s length as he draws the zipper down, and Shizuo hisses with the friction, his hips jolting up in involuntary effort to get closer to the resistance of Izaya’s hand. Izaya undoes the length of the zipper, frees his hand from Shizuo’s shirtfront to slide to the back of the other’s neck instead, and as his fingers tighten against the tangle of Shizuo’s hair his other palm presses down hard, grinding deliberate force against the heat of Shizuo’s erection inside the rumpled mess of his clothes. Shizuo groans into Izaya’s mouth, his lips parting reflexively around the spill of sound, and Izaya takes the motion like it’s an invitation for him to lick in past Shizuo’s lips and drag his tongue over the roof of the other’s mouth. It’s all a distraction, an assault on all Shizuo’s senses at once; it’s hard enough to keep his thoughts clear with Izaya’s hand weighting against the swell of his cock, he doesn’t stand any chance at all with the grip of the other’s hand bracing him in place for the drag of Izaya’s teeth and tongue as well. Shizuo’s lashes are falling shut, his attention is scattering to reform around the flex of Izaya’s fingers, and when he reaches out that’s reflexive too, his hands fumbling blind across soft fabric and warm skin until he can find his way to a handhold at Izaya’s hip and a bracing grip at the other’s collarbone. He can feel the way Izaya shifts like this, caught between both Shizuo’s hands like they form a brace, and when he moves away it’s only by an inch, only far enough to pant heat over Shizuo’s mouth and not with any intention of actually working himself free.

“You’re an idiot,” Izaya tells him, his eyes so dark and his mouth so near Shizuo can barely follow the meaning of the words for the experience of hearing them turn over on themselves, dark and heavy as syrup at Izaya’s lips. Shizuo’s mouth pulls on a frustrated frown, his forehead creases with simple impatience, and when he pulls at Izaya’s shoulder it’s to drag the other in closer again, near enough that Shizuo can soften the sharp edges of the other’s voice on his lips instead. Izaya huffs a sound, laughter or frustration Shizuo doesn’t stop to find out which, and when he slides his hand over the other it’s with the force of intention, of certainty as his fingers slide inside the give of Shizuo’s clothes. Fingertips trail over skin, Izaya’s thumb bumps against the flushed-hard resistance of Shizuo’s cock, and Shizuo makes a sound against Izaya’s mouth that goes too low and weighty to be anything but a moan. Izaya closes his fingers around Shizuo’s length, tugging to urge the other’s cock free of the tangle of his clothes, and when he draws back this time it’s with enough intention that the heat in Shizuo’s veins recognizes its echo and doesn’t try to resist. Izaya ducks his head down, his hair falling over his face as he looks at what he’s doing as he rocks himself forward; the hand at Shizuo’s hair tightens, pulling into pain that Shizuo just feels as another distant wave of sensation, no worse than the anticipation of pleasure coiling under all his skin. Izaya tips himself forward, his chest pressing close against Shizuo’s, and then “Hold still,” he says, biting off the words to the edge of command at Shizuo’s ear as he starts to lower his weight over the other’s lap. Shizuo can feel the drag of slick skin against the head of his cock, can feel Izaya’s grip against him tighten as the other draws Shizuo’s length back fractionally to shift the angle; and then Izaya rocks himself down, and Shizuo can feel the other’s body open up to him, and he can’t help the short, desperate thrust he takes against the hold of the other’s hand. Izaya’s grip slips, Shizuo slides deeper by an inch, and Izaya makes a sharp sound that breaks off cleanly at the back of his throat.

“ _Ah_ ,” he groans, his fingers clenching reflexively at Shizuo’s hair and dragging hard against the strands. “Hold _still_.”

“Oh,” Shizuo gasps “sorry” but Izaya’s not waiting for a reply in any case; he’s sinking lower without hesitation, settling his weight onto Shizuo’s lap with deliberate care while Shizuo shudders with the slick drag of Izaya’s body working down over the resistance of his cock. It makes him feel faintly dizzy, to have so much sensation with so little action on his part; and then Izaya’s thighs are pressing to his, and Izaya’s taking a breath as if to steady himself, and Shizuo leans hard against the wall and tries to focus on keeping himself still against the urge to rock up for more.

“There,” Izaya says. He shifts one leg against the floor, pressing his knee in flush against Shizuo’s hip as he tips his weight sideways and rocks up for a half-inch of movement, like he’s testing something. “ _Ah_.” The fingers at Shizuo’s hair seize tight for a moment, then loosen as Izaya sighs an exhale. “Hold still.”

Shizuo nods. It seems easier than finding voice around the tension in his chest; he doesn’t realize until Izaya lifts his head to frown at him that the other wasn’t watching him, that he still had his head ducked down to watch where they are fitting together. “Yeah,” he clarifies, and eases his hold at Izaya’s hip to a more reasonable level. “I will.”

“So you say,” Izaya says, sounding patently unconvinced; but he’s moving anyway, even without a firm belief in Shizuo’s intentions. Shizuo can feel the flex of effort running through Izaya’s body as he rocks himself up, can see it tremoring through his thighs and pressing tight against the resistance of his cock inside the other, and then Izaya sinks back down in a sudden slide of friction, and the sound Shizuo makes comes in perfect harmony with Izaya’s groaning exhale. Shizuo’s hand slides around Izaya’s hip, his fingers spread wide to catch at the curve of the other’s back, and Izaya ducks his head forward to press his forehead to the wall over Shizuo’s shoulder and breathe hard as he moves himself into a rhythm of heat and friction. Shizuo feels lightheaded, as if this is a dream, to be forced to stillness while the sensation in his body spikes and rises in time with someone else’s movement, but he holds as still as he can make himself stay, shutting his eyes and breathing against the dark of Izaya’s hair as the blood in his veins goes hot with a rising tide of desire. Izaya’s fingers in his hair tighten, the other’s hand slides up higher to curl against the back of Shizuo’s head; and then, just against Shizuo’s ear and without lifting his head, “I wouldn’t,” the words so thoroughly detached from the present moment that Shizuo is startled back to reality by the force of his own confusion.

He opens his eyes, turns his head; but Izaya isn’t pulling back, he still has his face pressed close to Shizuo’s shoulder and Shizuo can’t make out the details of his expression. “What?”

“I wouldn’t be doing this with just anyone.” Izaya’s words are soft against Shizuo’s shoulder; even as close as they are, Shizuo doesn’t think he would be able to make them out without the bite of force that comes with them, as if each one is razor-edged and being flung like a weapon. “If it weren’t you.”

Shizuo blinks. It’s hard to backtrack through the logic of Izaya’s words, the harder for the tide of heat that keeps breaking over his awareness with every grinding movement of Izaya’s hips onto him; his body rocks up an inch as his attention slips, instinct overriding focus to flex motion against his legs and drive himself deeper into Izaya. Izaya huffs a breath, his lungs emptying themselves of air at the motion, but he doesn’t give voice to protest, and Shizuo gasps an inhale and speaks into the quiet. “You wouldn’t?”

“No.” Izaya turns his head in against the side of Shizuo’s neck, as if he’s looking for traction to dig his teeth in against the other’s skin and tear down to the open heat of blood thrumming in trembling veins; but there’s no pain, not even the threat of a bite, just the gust of his breathing spilling against Shizuo’s collar. His lashes draw ticklish sensation under Shizuo’s ear when he blinks. “I wouldn’t.”

Shizuo doesn’t know what it is that he’s feeling. It’s too much to pull apart; there’s heat low in his stomach, the force of arousal unwinding into him with the same desperate edge that comes with his anger, as if it’s a fight he’s engaged in and not sex. But Izaya’s words press against the inside of his chest, aching with some kind of force that Shizuo hasn’t felt before, like his heart is swelling too-large and too-strong for the inside of his ribs. His arms shift, his grip tightening with strange, reflexive need, and Izaya presses closer against him, his hand in Shizuo’s hair sliding until his arm is around the other’s shoulders, until the grip of his fingers is close enough to hold Shizuo tight to him. Shizuo’s head is spinning, his thoughts are tangling in on themselves; Izaya is too close, he knows, all his experience says he’s throwing himself blind into danger to have Izaya so near, but Izaya’s gasping against his shoulder and Shizuo can feel the tremors of oncoming heat running through the other in his arms, and the only thing he can muster for himself is gratitude, bright and clear and strangely warm in his chest.

“I’m glad,” he says, offering the words to the dark of Izaya’s hair before he tightens his hold around the other’s waist to brace Izaya steady against the upward drive of his hips. Izaya groans against his shoulder, his arm flexing against Shizuo’s neck, but he’s moving faster to match Shizuo’s rhythm, pressing his legs closer against the other’s hips and speeding his movement to a more desperate pace to bring Shizuo farther into him with each upward thrust the other takes. Shizuo’s hand slides up, his palm presses close against the shift of shoulderblade tight under Izaya’s skin. “I’m glad you’re alive.” Izaya makes a faint noise against Shizuo’s shoulder, something of a whimper and something of a moan, and then he tenses his grip at the other’s shoulder and moves faster still and Shizuo’s attention to speech gives way entirely along with his focus on anything but the present moment. It doesn’t matter that the world he has always lived in is destroyed outside, it doesn’t matter that there has never before been anything but hate between the two of them; everything is just this moment, now, here, with Izaya gasping in his arms and drawing heat into Shizuo’s veins with every motion of his body while Shizuo’s heart hammers pressure against his ribcage. “I’m glad it’s you.”

“Fuck,” Izaya whimpers into Shizuo’s shoulder. “Shizu-chan.” The nickname sounds strange on the shadows in his voice; Shizuo can hear it straining, like it’s trying to give way to something new, like the structure of what they’ve had between them is crumbling as surely as the structure of their city. Shizuo doesn’t know what it will become, doesn’t know what they’re becoming together like this; but when his arm flexes it’s to pull Izaya in closer instead of shoving him away, and when he gasps air it’s to fill his lungs with the heat of Izaya’s skin radiant around them.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, his thoughts too wild to offer anything more than that one sound; and then Izaya slides down to meet the reflexive upward jolt of Shizuo’s hips, his body clenching into heat and tension and friction all at once, and Shizuo is coming before he can give any warning for it at all, choking off a startled groan of heat into Izaya’s shoulder as his hips snap up in involuntary need for more. Izaya hisses against his neck, the sound hot and dark at Shizuo’s skin, but Shizuo barely hears it; his whole awareness is eclipsed by the heat running through him, by the rippling sensation rushing through his limbs and tightening his grip around Izaya against him. Each flush of friction is another spill of heat, each gasp of air another shudder of pleasure; and finally his body eases, and his orgasm fades, and Shizuo can feel the slack weight of satisfaction settle all through his body.

There’s quiet for a moment, a heartbeat of peace for Shizuo to linger in the languid heat of pleasure so suffusing his body. Then Izaya shifts, just by an inch, and Shizuo is reminded forcibly of the strain of unsatisfied want still taut in the other’s body against him.

“Shit,” he blurts, and draws his hand away from Izaya’s back and around to his hip instead. “Sorry, here, let me--”

“I can,” Izaya’s saying over him, pulling back and away as he drops his hand from Shizuo’s shoulder to reach down for himself. “Let me get off you and I--” and Shizuo’s fingers slip sideways, his touch bumps against flushed-hard skin, and Izaya chokes on whatever it was he was going to say as his throat closes up on sudden heat. The arm around Shizuo’s neck tightens, Izaya’s weight rocks forward again as he gasps an inhale, and Shizuo’s whole body is going hot as he closes his fingers around Izaya’s length and feels the way the friction makes Izaya clench tighter around Shizuo still inside him.

“Oh,” Shizuo says, and tightens his grip, pressing his fingers in close against the flushed heat of Izaya’s length. “ _Izaya_.”

“Fuck,” Izaya blurts, and he’s pressing his forehead hard against Shizuo’s shoulder, Shizuo can hear the sound of the other’s breathing coming frantic-fast against the fabric of his shirt. Shizuo strokes up over Izaya experimentally, drawing his hand through a careful pull of friction, and Izaya’s back arches, his body flexes taut against the support of Shizuo’s lap. Shizuo tightens his hold around the curve of the other’s waist, pulling Izaya in flush against him, and at his shoulder Izaya is panting for air, his inhales dragging hard over the sensation of Shizuo’s fingers on him. Shizuo moves faster, twisting his hand to grind friction in against the sensitive head of Izaya’s cock, and Izaya jerks against him, Izaya’s fingers drag up to make a fist in his hair. Shizuo keeps going, feeling Izaya’s legs starting to tremble against him, feeling Izaya’s cock going slick against the weight of his thumb; and then he rocks his hips up by an inch, timing the movement with a rough pull over the head of Izaya’s cock, and Izaya groans against his shoulder, his voice tipping over an edge into unrestrained heat as his body spasms into relief. Shizuo can feel each shudder of pleasure run through Izaya’s body, can trace them in the flex of Izaya’s back under his hold and the pulses of heat spilling over his hand and in the convulsive tension clenching Izaya tight around his cock, and he’s shuddering an exhale of his own, like a much-delayed aftershock of pleasure spilling into him secondhand from Izaya’s orgasm. Izaya gasps at his shoulder, his hips shifting reflexively as he rides out the wave of pleasure; and then finally he sighs himself to relief, and lets himself go still in Shizuo’s lap while the tremors of orgasm running through him ease into languid calm.

They’re both quiet after. It seems to suit the moment, to linger in the uncommon peace that expands as if spilling from the heat of their skin to fill the room around them. Shizuo doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t have any words more than what he’s already offered, and Izaya stays silent too, even when his breathing slows and calms out of audibility again. His fingers are still twisted tight in Shizuo’s hair, his mouth is still close against Shizuo’s shirt; when Shizuo takes a breath, thinking to offer some kind of coherency to encompass the quiet of the moment, Izaya turns his head in against the side of the other’s neck, pressing close enough that his mouth catches at the side of Shizuo’s throat and his breathing burns heat over Shizuo’s skin. It’s a demand for silence, a plea perfectly understandable for all that it’s left unvoiced; and Shizuo closes his mouth again and leaves whatever words he might have had unspoken. There’s a moment of stillness; and then he tips his head back against the wall behind him, shifting fractionally to press his skin very slightly closer against Izaya’s mouth. It’s a tiny gesture, probably barely noticeable; but Shizuo can feel the inhale Izaya catches against his skin in acknowledgment, can feel the shift of the other’s mouth pressing his lips to the outline of a kiss for the briefest of moments.

Shizuo should have known Izaya’s actions would make more sense than his words.


	9. Dark

“What are we going to do?”

Shizuo’s speaking to the street in front of him, giving voice more idly than otherwise to the question that’s been working against the inside of his head with greater and greater force since he and Izaya first found each other in the shadows of that empty alley. He doesn’t think through the words, doesn’t realize how inane the question sounds until Izaya cuts his eyes at him sideways and huffs a skeptical exhale.

“Survive, was top on my list,” he says, stepping in closer to navigate around a fallen bike knocked over from where it was locked to a streetlight. “Sorry, is that not enough of a challenge to hold your attention?”

Shizuo rolls his eyes. “That’s not what I mean.” He has to dodge sideways to avoid a car pulled up inches onto the sidewalk next to them; Izaya doesn’t move away, and for a moment their shoulders are pressed close together. Izaya is very warm against Shizuo’s arm. “We’re getting out of the city, right? What about after that?”

“We _survive_ ,” Izaya repeats, more slowly, as if to ease Shizuo into the idea of the words. “I don’t know what part of this is so confusing to you. We get out of the city, and away from literally _thousands_ of shambling undead out for our brains, and we _keep living_ , would be my ideal conclusion here.” He takes the lead down the sidewalk, stepping ahead of Shizuo by a handful of paces; Shizuo watches the shift of Izaya’s shoulders under the straps of the backpack as he moves, idly tracking the graceful rhythm of the other’s steps as he paces across the empty pavement. “Maybe we can find some abandoned cabin in the wilderness and set up home there.”

Shizuo snorts. “Yeah, that’s a great plan. What would we _eat_?”

“We’d have to take up hunting,” Izaya says, so easily Shizuo has the strong suspicion he’s thought this through before. “I can identify at least some not-poisonous plants, and we could always have you taste-test anything we’re not sure about.” He looks back over his shoulder, his mouth curving up sharply at the corner. “You can handle a little poison, right, Shizu-chan?”

“Fuck you” Shizuo says easily, and Izaya laughs and looks away again. “So that’s your grand plan, then? Steal some abandoned cabin and live in the woods for the rest of our lives?”

Izaya’s shoulders stiffen, the flow of his gait stutters for just a moment. “Don’t let me dictate the course of your existence,” he says without looking back. “If you’d rather take your chances in this urban hellscape, be my guest.”

“No,” Shizuo says. “No, your idea sounds nice.” Izaya’s head tips, like he’s thinking about turning back, but he doesn’t complete the motion, and all Shizuo is left to see is the dark of his hair. “It sounds domestic.”

Izaya huffs a breath. Shizuo thinks it may have been intended as a laugh, but it comes out too soft and quiet to entirely pass for amusement. “Peaceful,” he says aloud, turning back to face fully ahead again. “Just like you always wanted.”

His tone is mocking. Shizuo doesn’t have to think about it to pick out the bite on the other’s words; Izaya means it as a joke, as a verbal attack as vicious as those physical blows he used to threaten. But for a moment Shizuo can see it clearly, the quiet of the imagined cabin and the reassurance of someone else’s presence to fill the space with more than just the sound of his own breathing, and for the span of just a heartbeat there’s something like want in his chest, something very close to longing that fills the space of his thoughts.

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s sincere on his tongue, his voice is so audibly gentle against the word even Izaya must be able to hear it. Izaya’s shoulders shift, his steps fall out-of-pace for a moment; but he doesn’t turn around, just clears his throat rough on the edge of uncertain emotion like Shizuo’s never heard from him before.

“Let’s save the daydreaming for when we’re outside the city, Shizu-chan,” he says, increasing his pace to take the lead down the sidewalk; Shizuo has to break into a jog to catch up, just to make sure he keeps Izaya in range. “We still don’t know how bad things are going to be at the border.”

Shizuo frowns, feeling the momentary warmth of his mental image flicker and evaporate back to the chill awareness of the abandoned city around them, of the buildings standing empty and silent in testament to the catastrophe that has fallen over their inhabitants. He feels like he’s been slapped, as if Izaya has actively shoved him back into reality; but “Fine,” is all he says, because Izaya’s right, unfortunately, and whatever protests Shizuo might want to offer can wait until after they’ve made it out of the shadows of the buildings around them. It’ll be a few minutes more, at most; and then they’ll be past the edge of the city, and working through the far more sparsely populated outskirts, and Shizuo can turn his attention back to the half-arguing, half-teasing he and Izaya have fallen into to fill the quiet of their daily routine.

He nevers gets the chance.

It’s the sound that Shizuo notices first. It’s a strange noise, a dull roar as if of the ocean breaking against a cliff face; but they’re still in the tangle of the city streets, and even in the quiet such a sound couldn’t carry that far. Shizuo frowns, confusion prickling uncertainty up his spine as they draw closer, as the sound surges louder; but Izaya is still moving fast, is still striding rapidly forward along the sidewalk as if it’s a race, as if whatever the noise is is the promise of freedom instead of something unknown waiting for them around the corner. It sounds like water, or engines, maybe, like hundreds of cars all purring together into a single endless spill of sound; but that’s not right either, Shizuo is sure, none of that is quite correct for the tenor of the noise filling the air around them. He’s stepping forward towards Izaya, reaching to touch the other’s shoulder to get his attention for a question; and then Izaya rounds the corner of the next intersection, and turns to look, and Shizuo can see the tension in his face flicker and fade into resignation in the time it takes his footsteps to still.

“What?” Shizuo says, but the sound of his voice is lost to that dull roar and he’s coming around the corner anyway, stepping to turn and look at whatever has so scattered Izaya’s carefully structured expression into disbelieving shock. His hand touches Izaya’s shoulder, his fingertips weight against dark fabric; but he doesn’t look back to the other, doesn’t even feel the give of Izaya’s shirt under his fingers, because all his attention is given to what is waiting for them at the other end of the street.

It’s not the ocean. The sound doesn’t come from crashing waves or even from the inexplicable thrum of thousands of cars somehow miraculously in use; it comes from throats, dozens of them, _hundreds_ of them, a seething wall of bodies pushing and shoving against each other to lock themselves in place at the edge of the city. Shizuo doesn’t know how long it’s been like this, can’t imagine how many people must have tried to escape only to walk into this mass of zombies, but there’s obviously and immediately no way out. Any survivors must have walked right into this just as they have, must have fallen nigh-instantly to the horde; it’s no wonder the mass is so enormous, not when every human remaining in the city has to face this waiting for them at any attempt to escape.

“Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo stares at the horde. They’re a block away, the mass only just starting to turn to see he and Izaya standing frozen at some distance; but they _are_ turning, he can see it like a wave cresting out of the ocean, can see the glazed-over attention of thousands of monsters shifting to pin he and Izaya still where they stand. It’s unbearable to face, impossible to think through, and for a moment Shizuo is locked where he stands, feeling like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights of some inevitable, oncoming destruction.

“ _Shizu-chan_.” There’s an impact, a burst of pain across Shizuo’s face, and he blinks, startled back into himself by the hurt. When he looks back Izaya is glaring at him, one hand still lifted from where he smacked Shizuo back into himself. “We have to _run_.”

“Where?” Shizuo says, feeling all his vague possibilities for the future disintegrating from under him to lock him in a paralysis of indecision about what even to move towards; but Izaya is reaching for his hand, Izaya’s fingers are closing bruise-tight against his wrist, and Izaya is saying “Come _on_ ” as he drags with desperate force at Shizuo’s arm. Shizuo stumbles in surrender to the pull, moving forward without quite knowing what he’s doing; but Izaya is starting to run, and pulling Shizuo in his wake, and Shizuo’s feet are moving too, obedient if clumsy with the confusion in his head.

“We have to regroup,” Izaya is saying, half-shouting the words to be heard over the roar of the horde surging into movement behind them. “We’ll get away and talk it over, we’ll come up with a new plan and we’ll--” and he rounds the corner and stops so abruptly Shizuo runs straight into him, knocking them both off-balance and stumbling. Shizuo grabs at Izaya’s shoulder, Izaya’s hand clutches at his arm, and between them they fumble back into balance.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shizuo growls. “Why did you--” and then he lifts his head, and he sees what Izaya saw -- the cluster of zombies shuffling down the street they just came from -- and his blood runs cold in his veins.

“They must have been following us,” Izaya says, murmuring the words like he’s talking to himself, like he’s struggling into understanding without thought of whether Shizuo can make sense of his words or not. It’s surprising, Shizuo thinks, that he can hear Izaya at all, with that dull roar of noise coming for them. “There’s no way we can make it past that many.”

“It’s not that many,” Shizuo says, but the protest is pointless; there’s only two dozen or so, compared to the uncounted horde approaching from behind them, but even together they’ve never been able to handle that many, and with their escape routes blocked there’s no time to fight their way free or maneuver to a better position. There’s clear street behind the smaller group, Shizuo can see the smooth line of pavement running off toward freedom; and it might as well be a continent away for how much they can get there.

“Fuck,” Izaya spits, his voice cracking in the back of his throat into almost a sob. “ _Fuck_. We’ve come all this way and all for _nothing_.”

“It’s not _over_ ,” Shizuo snaps. “Stop talking like you’re dead already.”

“Oh, yes,” Izaya throws back. “My apologies, I should be making the most of the _seconds_ I have left, you’re right as ever, Shizu-chan. So long as we go down fighting it’s a noble end, right?”

“It’s better than--” Shizuo starts, and something clicks into place in his head, some idea borne of adrenaline and resignation and hopeless desperation all coming together to unfold into clarity in his thoughts. He looks back to the smaller cluster, to the tight pack they’re making of themselves, to the relative size of their bodies in comparison to his own, to Izaya’s. He’ll never be able to take them out at a distance, even with a makeshift weapon to do the job for him, but if he closes with them…

His hands make the decision for him. They curl into fists at his side, his strength knotting his fingers into the weight of weapons before he’s made up his mind what he’s going to do, while resignation is still taking control over self-preservation.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, without looking away from the approaching enemies or easing his hands. “Run when I tell you to run.”

“Run _where_ ,” Izaya snaps, his voice still sharp-edged with confusion, his understanding still lagging behind Shizuo’s logic. “There’s nowhere to _go_ , Shizu-chan.”

“There will be.” Shizuo shifts his shoulders, sets his feet to steadiness. “When they’re paying attention to me, you’ll have a chance.” He looks at Izaya beside him, feeling his heartbeat steadying out of panic and into certainty. “Run as soon as you can and you can make it out, I’m sure you can.”

Izaya stares at him. His eyes are wide, his mouth slack; Shizuo’s never seen him look so surprised. “ _What_ ,” he finally manages, audibly struggling over the form of the word at his lips. “You can’t _possibly_ be serious.”

“We can’t both get out,” Shizuo says, tasting the words like a death sentence, like the funeral toll they are for him. “You can’t distract them long enough and I’m not fast enough. You always outran me, you can outrun them.”

“No,” Izaya says, and his mouth is trembling, now, the shocked soft of it is giving way to tension against his jaw, to shadows behind his eyes. “You’re not going to _sacrifice_ yourself for me.”

“I am,” Shizuo says. “I’m doing it right now.” He reaches for Izaya’s shoulder, closes his grip hard around the other’s arm and shoves to urge him away. “Go, I’ll hold them off for a few seconds.”

“ _No_ ,” Izaya says, his voice cracking and breaking loud enough against the sides of the buildings that the approaching cluster of zombies veers towards him, mindless attention caught by the shrill edge of the word. “I’m not going to _leave_ you.”

“Then we _both_ die,” Shizuo shouts. “And it really _is_ pointless.”

They stare at each other for a moment. There’s a city’s worth of zombies rounding the corner behind them, a double handful of attackers far closer and closing nearer with every heartbeat; but for the span of a breath all Shizuo can see is Izaya, standing with his hands slack at his sides and his jaw set on strain, his lashes impossibly dark over the saturated crimson of his eyes. There’s too much on his face to read -- hurt and anger and vicious fury but something gentler, underneath it, like all the pain is just a top layer for something as warm and soft as the way his mouth feels when Shizuo kisses him. Shizuo doesn’t think he’s ever seen Izaya look so beautiful, even as he sees the other’s expression set into resignation and feels his heart sink with the inevitability of the loss to come.

“No,” Izaya says, and he turns his head, shifts his feet to face the oncoming horde as he reaches for his pocket, as he draws his knife free. The blade snaps open under the press of his thumb, the metal catching and glinting in the light. His hand is still wrapped in the makeshift bandage of Shizuo’s vest. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

Shizuo can feel his heart ache in his chest, can feel his throat close up on the force of tears at the same time gratitude so sharp it’s agonizing breaks through the whole of his body as a new force intent on shattering his too-strong bones. He takes a breath, feels the cool of the air filling the whole space of his chest, and he knows the zombies are almost on top of them but when he moves it’s to take a step towards Izaya, to reach out and close his hold into a fist at the other’s shirt. Izaya’s head turns instantly, his attention jumping up to Shizuo even as he keeps the knife in his hand aimed towards the shuffling forms of their attackers, and Shizuo catches Izaya’s face between both hands, presses his fingers in close against the other’s cheeks to hold him steady right where he is.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, the name familiar on his lips even if it’s too quiet to hear over the sound of the horde coming for them, and he ducks in and down to press his mouth to the soft of the other’s lips instead of turning out to face their attackers. His skin prickles with adrenaline, his whole body goes tense in expectation of that one mortal blow to tear through his shirt and skin; but against his lips Izaya is opening his mouth, surrendering to reckless affection as his hand comes up, as his fingers fist with desperate force at Shizuo’s shirt, and Shizuo shuts his eyes and lets darkness swamp his vision. There’s the roar of the horde coming for them, the thunder of his heartbeat coming desperate with desire for time, for life, for survival; but Shizuo doesn’t let Izaya go, and he doesn’t pull away, and Izaya’s fingers at his shirt tighten rather than ease.

The quiet falls all at once. It’s instantaneous, with no warning and no explanation; one moment there’s the rumble of thousands of undead throats roaring with desire for their death, and the next there’s absolute peace, as if Shizuo has been severed from the world all at once. He pulls back from Izaya’s mouth with a gasp, wondering for a brief, wild moment if this is what it feels like to die; but his heart is still hammering in his chest, and there’s still that grip at his shirt, even if opening his eyes does nothing at all to lessen the darkness curtaining his vision.

“Shizu-chan?” That’s Izaya’s voice, shaky and quivering in the back of his throat, which at least rules out the possibility of sudden, inexplicable deafness. The hand at Shizuo’s shirt tightens and drags at the fabric. “Are you still here?”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says. His voice echoes strangely, like it’s bouncing off of some very near surface. “What happened?”

“I have no idea,” Izaya’s voice comes from the dark, without any of the bite that usually comes with him admitting ignorance. “I admit I didn’t expect the process of dying to be quite so painless. Or so immediate.”

“I don’t think we’re dead,” Shizuo says. There’s something prickling at the back of his thoughts, some almost-understanding trying to wind its way to the surface; everything is absolutely black around them, it’s as if they’ve been swallowed bodily into a shadow. “Unless I’m hallucinating you or something.”

There’s a huff of sound, the outline of a laugh too strained to sound clearly around them. “I’m flattered by your faith in my existence.” The hand at Shizuo’s shirt pulls again; it’s as if Izaya is trying to confirm the other’s continued presence, as if the press of Shizuo’s hands against his face aren’t enough to prove his reality. “If we’re not dead then what _are_ we? What _happened_?”

“I think--” Shizuo starts; and then he laughs suddenly, as memory finally manages to make itself heard over the rattle of adrenaline still surging through his veins, as understanding clicks itself into place inside the space of his head. “ _Oh_.”

“What is it?” Izaya snaps, his voice sharp in the back of his throat. “Care to let me in on the joke, Shizu-chan?”

“I know what happened,” Shizuo says, and he lifts one hand from Izaya’s cheek to reach out instead, to press his palm flat against the velvet smoothness of the shape around them. It’s a dome, he can feel the curve of it rising over them to just clear the top of his head; the surface is smooth like glass, completely seamless under the weight of his fingertips, just like a pair of gloves he wore, once. “It’s Celty.” He laughs again, relief surging higher in him as he presses his hand flush to the ceiling overhead, as he lets his other arm fall to drop around Izaya’s shoulders, to steady his grip on the other in the night-dark of the shadow around them.

“Celty’s found us.”


	10. Peace

“It’s really amazing that you’re alive, you know!” Shinra is all but chirping the words, his enthusiasm as effusive and cheerful as ever; in the absence of any company but Izaya’s for days, it’s downright overwhelming. Shizuo feels like flinching from the force of the other’s voice, from the speed with which he’s relaying information; it’s all a little too much to bear, like sunshine blinding and painful against eyes too long used to the dark. “I thought Shizuo might make it out, but when we heard what happened to Shinjuku I was sure you were a goner, Izaya!”

“Thanks,” Izaya says. “Your concern is flattering as ever.”

Shinra just laughs. “There’s no point in worrying about people until we find them,” he informs them both brightly. “Most of the city is gone, so the best we can do is be glad when we’re able to help the survivors. We got to Kadota and his group within the first day; they headed out yesterday to make for the next town over and see if there’s anyone left to send aid.” He shrugs, apparently utterly unconcerned by the result of this latest desperate attempt at help. “Either way, we all have Celty here, and she’s the best defense against zombies we could hope for. She’s not exactly alive to begin with, after all, so it’s not like she has to worry about being turned.”

 _Thanks_ , Celty types from her seat on the couch next to them. They’re all clustered together in the main space of what was an onsen, before the outbreak hit; the space is tidy, at least, showing fewer of the signs of devastation the buildings in the city demonstrate, but there’s still a long scratch alongside the door, and one of the panes of glass in the front room is shattered to leave the breeze outside to ruffle Shizuo’s hair and at the collar of Izaya’s coat. Celty’s phone is cracked across the front, the glass showing the same signs of damage Shizuo’s clothes and the front space of the onsen do, but the keyboard seems to work well enough, and with the font size turned up higher than usual the text is readable in any case. _That doesn’t mean it’s a very pleasant experience to have them trying to eat me_. _Shooter doesn’t like it very much either._

“Of course he doesn’t,” Shinra agrees. “It’s still better than leaving survivors trapped in the city, isn’t it?”

Celty types so fast for a moment Shizuo can’t see her fingers move. _Of course it is!_ That goes by quickly, barely held up long enough for Shizuo to glimpse before she’s typing again. _If I hadn’t made it there in time Shizuo and Izaya would have been…_

“Yes, yes,” Shinra soothes, reaching out to pat Celty’s knee with complete disregard for the weight of the ellipsis that Shizuo can feel shudder down his spine with uncomfortable self-awareness. “You really are an angel of salvation to the people we find!”

 _Yes_ , Celty types back, cutting off Shinra while he’s just taking a breath to launch into what Shizuo suspects will be a full-blown recital of Celty’s positive qualities. _And we should really get back. Izaya and Shizuo aren’t the only ones still alive in the city_.

“You’re right as always, of course my darling!” Shinra looks back to Shizuo and Izaya without any sign of the bright of his smile fading. “You two don’t mind staying here, do you?”

“You mean we’re not invited to come with you on your return to the hell we barely escaped from with our lives?” Izaya wants to know. “I’m hurt, really, I thought we were friends.”

Shinra’s laugh fills the whole of the space around them with sound; Shizuo does flinch, this time, but Shinra doesn’t seem to notice or doesn’t mind if he does. “That’s what I thought you’d say. Come on, Celty, let’s get back to making you a hero!”

 _The baths are in the back_ , Celty types to them as she stands to head for the door. _I’ll barricade the front when we leave so you won’t need to worry about attacks. Get some rest._

“Yeah,” Shizuo says. “Thanks.” Celty reaches out to touch his shoulder, weighting her hand against the sleeve of his shirt for a moment of comfort far better than words would be; and then she’s sliding her phone away into the shadows of her sleeve and turning to follow Shinra to the door. Shinra holds it open for her, lifts a hand in an enthusiastic wave, and then follows Celty out into the spill of sunlight coming through the entrance. Shizuo watches them step away, watches the door swing closed behind them; and then there’s just him, and Izaya, and the quiet spreading to the smooth of unprecedented peace between them.

Shizuo doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have any words, not for the calm radiating around them or the relief still trembling in his fingers or the aching pressure still at his chest, like a fist closed tight around his heart that refuses to loosen even with the reassurance of safety all around them. He doesn’t have anything to offer to fill the weight of that silence, doesn’t have anything to add that hasn’t already been said, that wasn’t already laid out with crystal clarity in those few seconds when he thought he was measuring the last of his life in the thud of his heartbeat in his chest and the rush of Izaya’s breathing hot against his mouth. It seems impossible that he’s been given back the chance at the life he had resigned himself to lose, like the clarity of reality around him is some kind of an extended fever dream instead of his actual existence. But this is real, his breathing and his heartbeat and the hum of life working steady in his veins, and then there’s a touch at his wrist, fingers brushing against his skin, and when Shizuo turns Izaya is reaching for his hand. He has his head ducked down, his hair falling to a dark curtain in front of his eyes; all Shizuo can see of his expression is the downward slant of his lashes and the strange softness at his mouth as Izaya looks at his fingers trailing over Shizuo’s hand. His fingertips brush Shizuo’s knuckles, slide over the angle of his fingers bracing against the floor and up, over the back of his hand and to the curve of the other’s wrist. Shizuo can feel the weight of Izaya’s touch sliding over the tendons in his arm, working along the line of his cuff and against the heat of his skin, and against his chest the pressure is shifting, easing away from pain and into something warmer, brighter, brilliant like sunshine fitting against the curve of his ribs.

Shizuo doesn’t speak. Language is difficult, words insufficient; better to move in silence, to tip himself sideways without breaking the quiet that has fit itself around the thud of his pulse and the dip of Izaya’s shoulders. His hair brushes Izaya’s, his breath gusts warm at the other’s cheek, but Izaya doesn’t lift his head; he just shuts his eyes, the shift of his lashes a surrender and an offer at once, and Shizuo turns his head in closer, lifting his chin so he can press his mouth against the soft of Izaya’s cheek. His lips brush Izaya’s cheekbone, fit to settle a kiss just at the line of the other’s lashes; he can hear Izaya take a breath, can feel the rush of air at his shoulder as the other’s fingers tighten at his wrist, closing into a hold like he’s testing his grip against the resistance of Shizuo’s skin. Shizuo presses closer, tipping his head to fit another kiss an inch lower, to work his way down Izaya’s cheek towards the give of his mouth, and Izaya huffs an exhale and lifts his head to turn to meet Shizuo’s unvoiced request. His mouth is warm against Shizuo’s, his lips soft against the other’s; Shizuo kisses him slow, carefully, taking the time to work his way through the action with all the attention he lost to terrified adrenaline during what he thought would be the last time. Izaya follows his lead without protest, parting his lips to the touch of Shizuo’s tongue and tipping his head back when Shizuo leans in closer against him; after a moment Shizuo lifts his free hand from the floor and reaches out to slide his fingers in against the silky dark of the other’s hair, to fit his hand against Izaya’s head to hold him steady against the force of Shizuo’s mouth. Izaya’s fingers at his wrist flex, pinning the cuff of Shizuo’s sleeve close against his skin, and Shizuo can feel the weight of his clothes like a burden, like the heat rising under his skin is demanding freedom from the restriction of fabric clinging so close against him.

Izaya trails him when he pulls away, leaning in to follow Shizuo as his lashes flutter open, as his gaze comes back into focus on the other and the weight of a frown starts at his lips. Shizuo wants to offer reassurance, wants to smooth away the confusion creasing against Izaya’s forehead; but his voice is stalled in his throat, caught around the strain of effort turning his breathing audible in the space between them. Easier to let Izaya’s hair go, to reach for his far wrist instead; Izaya looks down as Shizuo’s fingers close on his sleeve, his attention dropping at the friction, and in the moment of him looking down Shizuo is getting to his feet, rocking up onto his knees and pulling to urge Izaya with him. Izaya follows, stumbling only a little ungracefully as he moves, and Shizuo pulls him towards the hall as fast as they rise, moving them both towards the back of the onsen.

It takes him two tries to find an empty room -- the first has a heap of clothes in it, presumably belonging to one of Kadota’s friends, and the second is clearly Celty and Shinra’s, judging from the tangle of sheets over two futons pushed close together -- but the third room is as empty as he could wish, absent anything but a futon laid out in the corner like an invitation for their use. He draws Izaya into the room, lets go of the other long enough to slide the door shut behind them; and then he turns back, and Izaya’s there waiting for him.

They move slow towards the bed. There’s no rush, no hurry; just a deliberate process across the floor, Izaya backing up by half-steps while Shizuo fits his hands against Izaya’s hair, jawline, neck, down against the soft fur at the collar of his jacket and underneath to the flushed heat of bare skin. The jacket gives way to the push of his hands, after Izaya finally relinquishes his hold on Shizuo’s wrist, and Shizuo catches his fingers under the hem of Izaya’s shirt to tug it up and over the other’s head while Izaya is still reaching out for the front of his own. He pulls the shirt free, lets it drop from his fingers to the floor alongside them, and it’s as Izaya is pushing the buttons on Shizuo’s shirt open that the other finally speaks, voicing the words with his head ducked down so all Shizuo can see of him is the shift of his lips over his speech.

“I’m not the only other person alive in Japan, Shizu-chan.” Izaya’s halfway down the front of Shizuo’s shirt; his fingers keep working even as he speaks, easing buttons free of fabric with steady intention unaffected by the lilt of the words on his tongue. “You have other options now, you know.”

Shizuo lifts his hands from the bare skin of Izaya’s waist for a moment, just long enough for Izaya to slide his fingers down over Shizuo’s shoulders and urge his shirt off his skin. He doesn’t look aside to watch it fall, just reaches back out to replace his hands right where they were as Izaya’s fingers land against his shoulder and the curve of his hip.

“I know,” he says, ducking his head so the words come out against Izaya’s hair, his breath ruffling the dark of the strands.

“There’s not just me,” Izaya tells him. His arm is winding around Shizuo’s neck, his fingers mapping out the line of the other’s shoulders as Shizuo tightens his hold on Izaya’s waist; when he pushes Izaya lets his balance go, lets Shizuo take the support of his weight so he can drop to a knee and lower them down towards the futon. “You could seduce Karisawa, I’m sure, under the circumstances. Or Yumasaki, probably, if your preferences lean towards men in general.”

“You didn’t run,” Shizuo says. Izaya’s arm tightens around his neck, Izaya’s forehead tips in to press against his shoulder as if to hide his face. Shizuo turns his head in until his mouth is brushing the curve of Izaya’s ear. “Why didn’t you run?”

Izaya doesn’t answer aloud. There’s just the tension in the arm around Shizuo’s neck, the catch of an inhale against his bare shoulder; at his hip Izaya’s fingers tense, his fingernails catching close against Shizuo’s skin. Shizuo can feel the give of dark fabric pinned between Izaya’s wrist and his hip, and he doesn’t ask again. He knows the answer anyway; he saw it in the dark of the other’s eyes staring back at him on the street, affection sharp and bright and painful as shattered glass, as if love had taken a razor’s edge to Izaya’s wrists and left him to bleed himself to suicide rather than walk away from Shizuo’s side. Shizuo can feel the weight of that on his chest even now, pressing against his heart like it’s trying to crush its rhythm to silence, like it’s the only thing letting him go on breathing. He closes his eyes, sighs an exhale against Izaya’s hair at his lips.

“I want you,” he says, simple words for an infinity of meaning. Izaya shudders at his shoulder, his lips catching against Shizuo’s skin, and Shizuo frees his hand from Izaya’s waist to let his touch draw across and down, following the line of Izaya’s hip to the waistband of his jeans. His fingers skip over denim, his palm catches at the line of zipper, and when he presses his palm close against the fabric Izaya bucks up against the friction of his touch, his body arching with some measure of his old grace to grind himself in against Shizuo’s hand. Shizuo can feel the other hard against his palm, can feel the outline of Izaya’s cock press heat against his touch, and he’s pushing back without conscious thought, curling his fingers in to drag over the denim and grinding his palm flush against the other while electricity flares down his spine, while his skin goes radiant with the rising flush of desire in his veins.

“Please,” he says, his voice dropping lower than he intends it to, dipping into the depths of his vocal range while he feels Izaya going harder against his touch, feels his own cock swelling to heat against the inside of his pants. “Let me feel you.” He presses his hand in harder, grinds his palm down with force; Izaya hisses at his shoulder, his legs flexing on startled heat as he tries to buck up against Shizuo’s touch. “I want to be inside you.”

“Fuck,” Izaya bites off at his shoulder. “ _Please_.” It might be sarcasm in another context, might be disbelief in another tone; in this moment, in Izaya’s voice, the word skids up over want to topple over the edge into desperation. Shizuo can hear the heat under the word as clearly as he can feel it under his palm, can feel his own body thrum with answering arousal rising to crystal-clarity in his veins, and he gusts an exhale at Izaya’s hair and draws back, pushing up and over his knees as he slides free of Izaya’s hold around his shoulders.

“The bottle’s in my coat,” Izaya says, reaching out to gesture vaguely towards the dark of his dropped clothes, and Shizuo turns in obedience to the unstated request, reaching out to grab at the fur collar of the hood and draw it in towards him. He finds the bottle on his first try, draws it free to set it in reach and tosses the coat aside once more, and underneath him Izaya is pulling down the zipper of his jeans and sliding his thumbs under the weight of the waistband. He has the clothes half off his hips before Shizuo catches at them to take over the motion, and he arches up without any hesitation at all to lift himself off the floor while Shizuo drags the clothing free of his legs. Izaya kicks his feet free, grabs at the denim to shove it aside and out of the way, and Shizuo is reaching for the bottle so he can push the lid open and spill the cool of the liquid across his fingers. Izaya’s fingers catch at his slacks while he’s still coating his hand with slick liquid, his hands working Shizuo’s slacks open with elegant efficiency, and by the time Shizuo is setting the bottle aside and bracing a hand against the inside of Izaya’s thigh Izaya has his clothes undone and is sliding his fingers down past the slack weight of the fabric. Shizuo sets his fingers wide against Izaya’s skin, presses to hold the other’s leg angled open while he touches slippery fingers against Izaya’s entrance, and Izaya’s touch drags against him as the other’s fingers find out the flushed heat of his cock. Shizuo groans at the contact, his hips rocking forward to press to Izaya’s touch, and Izaya curls his fingers in around Shizuo’s length, his grip tensing for a moment of flaring satisfaction before easing enough to let him take a slow stroke over Shizuo’s cock.

“Move,” he says, his voice thrumming to shadow as his gaze fixes on the movement of his hand, and Shizuo moves, pushing forward to let one finger sink into the heat of Izaya’s body. Izaya clenches around him, tensing in a shudder of involuntary friction, but the sound he makes is more a moan than protest, and he doesn’t ease the slide of his hand over Shizuo’s length. Shizuo shifts his hand at Izaya’s thigh, steadying his hold as he works his touch in deeper, and Izaya’s shutting his eyes completely and tipping his head back to curve his throat to pale smoothness. Shizuo fixes his attention there, his gaze sweeping out over the elegant line of Izaya’s neck down to the dip between his collarbones, and he presses in deeper, the whole length of his finger before he draws back for another full thrust. Izaya is easing to him as fast as he moves, the heat of his body relaxing around the force of Shizuo’s touch, and after a moment Shizuo urges another finger alongside the first, angling his thrusts to stretch Izaya wider to his movement. Izaya’s fingers are sliding over him, the friction of the other’s touch urging Shizuo’s cock harder with every stroke; the head is going slick under Izaya’s grip, easing the drag of the other’s touch as he trails his fingertips across the swollen-sensitive skin. Shizuo is rocking forward without thinking, matching the movement of his hips against Izaya’s grip with the pump of his fingers into Izaya’s body, and then Izaya shifts, tipping his knee open as he lifts his head to blink hazy heat at Shizuo, and Shizuo can feel the invitation clear in the heat of Izaya tight around his fingers.

He draws free carefully, easing his touch away as he rocks back over his heels to pull away from Izaya’s hold; Izaya lets him go without protest, shifting to spread his legs wider while Shizuo pushes at his slacks to work them off his hips and down his legs. They cling to the sweat-damp of his flushed skin, tangle around his ankles when he tries to kick them free; but then they’re off, pushed aside to join Izaya’s fallen clothing, and Shizuo is leaning back in, his knees fitting between the open angle of Izaya’s and his hips pressing to the soft skin at the inside of Izaya’s thighs. Izaya hooks his leg around Shizuo’s hip, arches his back to tip his body up to meet the other’s, and Shizuo reaches to brace his fingers at Izaya’s hip to hold the other steady while he rocks forward. His cock presses to Izaya’s entrance, slick skin meeting slick skin; and then he pushes, and Izaya eases, and they come together in one smooth slide of relief.

“ _Oh_ ,” Shizuo breathes, feeling all the tension in his chest give way at once like it’s setting the air in his lungs free in a rush. He shifts his weight in farther over his knees, trying to press closer to Izaya under him, and Izaya shudders and reaches up to catch a hand at the back of Shizuo’s neck like he’s bracing himself in place. He angles his other leg around Shizuo’s hip too, crossing his ankles at the dip of the other’s back, and Shizuo draws back by an inch before letting the press of Izaya’s legs urge him closer, deeper, sinking into the impossible heat of the other’s body like he’s trying to blur away the lines that separate one of them from the other.

“Fuck,” he gasps, heat rippling up his spine to tense across the line of his shoulders. “Izaya” and he’s tipping forward and down, dropping to brace against his forearm at the futon instead of against the support of his palm. Izaya arches under him, his body curving like it’s trying to meet and match Shizuo’s, and Shizuo lets his grip at Izaya’s hip go so he can fit his hand down between their bodies instead. His fingers brush flushed skin, his palm drags over the head of Izaya’s cock, and Izaya whines a broken-off sound in the back of his throat and clutches at Shizuo’s hip, his fingers digging in hard against the other’s skin. Shizuo slides his hand down farther, curls his fingers in close around Izaya’s length, and as he rocks his hips back he draws his hold up over the other, fitting the stroke of his hand over Izaya’s length to the movement of his cock into Izaya’s body. Izaya’s lashes flutter, his lips part on the huff of his breath, and Shizuo watches heat break over his expression, watches the tension so everpresent in the other’s face melt and dissolve to the force of his touch and his movement.

“I was glad,” he says, spilling the words on some surge of unnecessary sincerity, honesty making an unasked offering of itself. “I was glad you stayed.” Izaya blinks, visibly struggling to focus on Shizuo’s voice, and Shizuo can feel the words pressing at his throat like a confession, like he must set them free or choke on the weight of them. “It was selfish and it was suicidal and I wanted you to run but when you said you would stay--” Shizuo’s voice breaks, emotion spiking too high in his throat for him to speak past it, and he has to duck his head to Izaya’s shoulder, has to breathe in against the heat of the other’s skin under his lips. “I was so _glad_.”

“Oh,” Izaya says, his voice weak and wavering against Shizuo’s hair. “Shizu-chan.”

“Fuck,” Shizuo gasps against Izaya’s shoulder. “Izaya.” He can feel that pressure against his chest again, can feel the force of it rising higher than it was before, as if the heat of Izaya’s body around him is urging it brighter instead of soothing the need, as if the strain rising in him with each thrust he takes is tensing into the shape of words he can’t make sense of even as they form on the back of his tongue. “I think I... _Izaya_.”

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, and his legs are trembling against Shizuo’s hips, his thighs flexing through tiny convulsive tremors of strain. “Don’t stop, Shizuo, please, _please_.”

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, and sincerity comes clear in his throat, words tumbling forward over his tongue and off his lips before he can stop them. “I think I love you” and under him Izaya gasps a choked-off inhale, his legs seizing to sudden tension at Shizuo’s hips as his cock twitches and spills hot all across his stomach. His body tenses, clenching hard around Shizuo through involuntary waves of pleasure, and Shizuo can feel every part of him flex on heat as Izaya’s orgasm pushes him over the edge into his own. Izaya’s shuddering under him, gasping through each rush of sensation, and Shizuo is quivering in perfect echo, his cock pulsing heat into Izaya as if it’s being drawn out of him by the other’s pleasure. He can’t think, he can’t move; all he can do is gasp, filling his lungs with air that inverts into groaning exhales over Izaya’s skin as he rides out the wave of sensation so eclipsing his awareness.

It takes a few minutes for the tremors to subside. Shizuo comes back to himself slowly, fitting himself into the languid heat of his sated body while Izaya is still shuddering with aftershocks underneath him. Shizuo’s fingers are sticky, his grip pressed tight around Izaya’s softening cock; he eases his hold carefully, drawing his hand away just enough to return the weight of his hand to Izaya’s hip instead before letting himself relax, letting the weight of his body settle in against Izaya’s for a long moment of relief. Izaya’s hand at his skin tenses, Izaya’s fingers twist into his hair; but when the other takes a breath and speaks it’s not the protest Shizuo half-expects.

“I couldn’t leave.” The words are soft, softer than Shizuo has ever heard Izaya’s voice before; they’re almost a whisper, Shizuo doesn’t think he would hear them at all were he not so breathlessly close. “I can’t let you die without me.”

“Fuck,” Shizuo says without lifting his head. “Is that your idea of romance?”

Izaya huffs a sound that Shizuo thinks might have been intended as a laugh, or something close to it. “Always,” he says. “Tell me again.”

“What?” Shizuo pushes himself up over his arm, frowning confusion as he blinks himself back into focus on Izaya’s face. “Tell you what?” And then he sees the way Izaya is looking at him -- those soft eyes, that set mouth, his whole expression trembling like it’s on the verge of collapse -- and he realizes.

“Oh,” Shizuo says, feeling his heart skip into a faster rhythm in his chest, feeling his veins go warm with the purr of familiar adrenaline. He swallows to clear his throat, licks his lips to damp. “I love you.”

Izaya’s lashes flutter, his mouth goes soft on an exhale; Shizuo can see the tension drain out of his face, can see the color rising from the shadows of the other’s eyes as his gaze comes back into focus on Shizuo’s features. Shizuo’s never seen Izaya look so gentle, has never known him to look so beautiful.

“Shizu-chan,” he says, and it sound like relief, like the exhale of some breath held over a span of uncounted years of silence. “I love you.”

Shizuo’s throat goes tight, words die in his throat. He can’t speak, can’t offer a reply aloud; so he does what he can do instead, and leans down to press his mouth to the soft of Izaya’s under his.

Whatever else they may have lost, he’s grateful to have found this much.


End file.
